Persons with a disability, or who had a temporary disability, have a right to be employed! Persons with disabilities have a civil right to employment as much as any non-disabled person has a right to employment. If you are an employee who became temporarily or permanently disabled and requested a reasonable accommodation so you can perform the essential functions of your job, and your employer began giving you unjustified poor performance evaluations, starting shutting you out of meetings, assigned you a new unreasonable workload you had never been previously assigned, you are not alone. Unfortunately, these are tactics that an unsavvy employer may use to pressure an employee into resigning. See Employment Attorney, I Was Put on a PIP: the Dangers of a PIP.
There are stereotypes which leads employers to believe that persons with disabilities will be not be able to take on and advance in complex tasks and responsibilities and supervise others because of perceived limitations which have no basis in fact, but they are associated with disability in general or with specific chronic health condition stereotypes. These misconceptions serve as a justification for discriminatory employment practices. Managers who reported having a disability have distinctly low employment rate compared to their non-disabled counterparts according to government statistics.
If you think you are being pushed out of your job because of your disability, or your employer refuses to give you a reasonable accommodation so you may perform the essential functions of your job, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I have represented public and private employees who were pushed out of jobs because of their disability and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. Call today for a free consultation.
If you experienced a change in the workplace after you returned from a disability leave, there may be unsubstantiated assumptions by your employer that you no longer are able to perform the essential responsibilities of your job with or without an accommodation. As the United States Supreme Court has noted, certain types of disabilities such as cancer, heart disease, seizures, etc., evoke stereotypical fears that perpetuate discrimination against those having those disabilities in all aspects of life, including employment. The sociological history of these disabilities, as seen within the context of the superstitions,18th century medicine, and decades, even centuries old cultural myths, provides a salient example that fear, rather than the disability itself, is the major impetus for discrimination against persons with the disability. See NJ Disability Attorney, When Employers Discriminate More Against Female Workers with Cancer than Men.
A "perception of disability" as a cause for employment discrimination is just as illegal as actual disability discrimination.
An employee returning from a medical leave may be able to return to work and resume their full duties without any accommodation, but the employer nevertheless perceives the employee to be impaired and too disabled to effectively perform their duties. A perception of disability may trigger an illegal employer response. In New Jersey, a perceived disability as a cause for employment discrimination is just as illegal as actual disability discrimination. See New Jersey Disability Discrimination Lawyer. By way of example, a manager or executive could be rising on an upward mobility corporate track. Then he goes out on leave for a cardiac medical treatment, the employer learns he received such medical treatment, and although the employee returns to work, is fully recovered, and needs no accommodation, the accelerations in promotions nevertheless stops, he is perceived as being less effective on his job and is given unjustified harsh performance evaluations. See Employee Performance Evaluations.
Don’t Sit on Your Rights
I have represented public and private employees who were pushed out of jobs because of their disability or because they requested a reasonable accommodation and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think you are being pushed out of your job because of your disability, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I accept discrimination and whistleblower cases from all over New Jersey and have locations in Southern, Central and Northern NJ to meet with clients.
If You Quit Your Job, You May Lose Right to Prevail in a Lawsuit
In many instances of discrimination, if you quit your job, you may lose right to prevail in a lawsuit unless you first take certain legally required measures to preserve your job while you are still employed. If you are thinking of handing in a resignation letter, or think you will be fired (or have already been terminated), you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation to discuss your options.
Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law represents workers throughout the entire state, including Hackensack, Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange, Trenton, Paterson, Montclair, Elizabeth, North Brunswick, Cherry Hill, Vineland, Union, Plainfield, Hamilton Township, Lakewood, Edison, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Franklin, Lakewood, and every NJ County, including Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Essex, Monmouth, Somerset, Ocean, Union, Camden, Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, Burlington, Camden Counties.