Employment Law for Business: The Americans with Disabilities Act

Signed into law in 1992, the ADA and its later extension with the ADA Amendments Act and Revised ADA Regulations, currently bans any discrimination in employment procedures, including job application, hiring, compensation, training, advancement, and firing, as well as all other employment-related activities. As of today, The Americans with Disabilities Act (2015) applies to all employers with at least 15 employees, and equally covers private, federal, state, and local government employees with disabilities. In this regards, an individual is considered to have a “disability” in case she or he possesses a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one’s major life activity, has a medical record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such impairment. In their turn, employers are obliged by the ADA (2015) to acknowledge such applicants as otherwise qualified for a job position.

Thus, on the one hand, the Act prohibits any discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities, including the ban on requiring medical examination conclusion before making a job offer, but on other hand, the employers are not allowed to make an undesirable employment or give preference to applicants with disabilities over other applicants. Moreover, employers are encouraged to select the most qualified applicant available and to make decisions basing on reasons unrelated to disability issues. An employer may, however, ask questions about applicant’s ability to perform the specific job functions, as well as condition its job offer on the satisfactory result of a post-offer medical examination, especially in case it is equally required of all entering employees in the same job position.

Furthermore, The Americans with Disabilities Act (2015) does not require employers to develop particular job descriptions. However, in case of hiring applicants with disabilities, businesses are obliged to provide reasonable accommodation, i.e. perform any required modifications to a job position and workplace conditions that will enable applicants and employees with disabilities both to participate in the application process and later perform their direct job functions equally with the rights and privileges employees without disabilities have. Here, employee’ major obligation consists in timely and clear notification about one’s special needs. Once the request is made, an employee further has the responsibility to work with the employer on determining the most appropriate accommodation. In case of employee’s failure to cooperate on this, the request on reasonable accommodation conditions may be disqualified under the ADA.

In addition, the ADA’s requirement of reasonable accommodation does not imply that the employer must create a new job position, turn a full-time position into a part-time position, or modify essential job functions. The employers are also not expected to accommodate employees at the expense of lowering production standards or designing personal use items for individual employees. However, in case an applicant is not hired due to the fact that a post-offer medical inquiry reveals any type of disability, the reasons for not hiring must be strictly job-related. The employer must be ready to prove that a) no reasonable accommodation was available in this job position, b) an individual would pose a direct threat in the workplace; or c) accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the employer. The latter is not limited to financial inconveniences but also involves any accommodation that would be unduly expensive, extensive, disruptive, or that would fundamentally change the nature of a business process.

In this way, in a disparate treatment case, employer’s defense should, in the first place, establish that the employment action was taken for a reason other than disability discrimination and, thus, was strictly guided by The Americans with Disabilities Act (2015) in its major condition on evaluating each applicant basing on one’s competence solely.

 

References:

United States Department of Justice (2015). The Americans with Disabilities Act 1990-2015. Accessed from http://www.ada.gov/

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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