As a business owner, you are responsible for adhering to certain laws regarding the rights of your employees. That includes proper accommodation for disabled employees. By following the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and other acts such as the Rehabilitation Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act, you can ensure that you are providing reasonable accommodation to the disabled at your workplace and not infringing on the rights that they are privileged to.  Failure to provide reasonable accommodation could result in a disability discrimination lawsuit against your business.

Accommodation

“Reasonable accommodation” does not mean giving preferential treatment to disabled employees, but giving them the means necessary to be able to perform as well as their able-bodied colleagues. Examples of these accommodations would be offering disabled parking right by the building, having reading materials printed in Braille for blind or visually impaired people and offering modifications to the job function that are within reason. Proper accommodations should not require any extensive overhaul of how the job is performed in order to accommodate a disabled employee.

Types of Disabilities

Disabilities covered by the ADA range in type. Examples of physical disabilities include loss of mobility that necessitates the use of a wheelchair, loss of limbs and diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Mental disorders include major depression, autism and schizophrenia. Chronic diseases and conditions include cancer, diabetes, epilepsy and HIV infection.

Accommodation Requests

Any employee with a disability that needs accommodation to perform their job successfully will need to submit an accommodation request. There is no official format or guidelines for these requests, but they should be easy to parse and be specific in their intent. The accommodation request can be made orally or in writing and should be properly handed to by whoever receives it first and designated to the proper figure if necessary. As an employer, you can choose a specific person to handle these accommodation requests. Other employees should have some training for handling accommodation requests if they receive them.

Receiving Requests

Each accommodation request should be reviewed carefully and discuss any questions or elaboration needed from the requester. As an employer, you will need to ask as many questions as you feel necessary in order to offer proper accommodation. The requester will need to be as specific as possible about what kinds of accommodations they need. A disabled employee should be able to offer information regarding their requirements, but as an employer, you should be educated about typical accommodations needed for disabled people in the workplace. The limitations of the disabled employee and the extent to which they need accommodation should be determined in order to move forward properly.

Medical Requests

Sometimes, further information might be required, particularly if an employee’s disability is not readily apparent. As an employer, you have the right to request medical information pertaining to the employee’s condition that helps you to determine what kind of accommodation they need. This information can also provide information about the severity of the condition, such as whether it is going to stay stable for the foreseeable future or whether it is liable to worsen over time, and therefore require further accommodation. Any medical information received must be kept confidential by those who receive it.

Building Requirements

A workplace with disabled employees will be required to have structures in place that accommodate the disabled employees. These include things like handicapped parking spots and wheelchair accessible entry. For private employers, these are only required on the basis of an employee or applicant needing such access. However, if you are an employer who is making modifications to or constructing a new public or commercial facility, then you will be required to meet requirements for accessibility as listed in Titles II and III of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Responding to Requests

When a request for accommodation has been received, an employer should take the proper response measures right away. All necessary steps should be followed and the request should be fulfilled no later than 30 days after it is made. If the need for accommodation is already clear when the employee applies or begins working, then the request should be fulfilled in a much shorter time span.

 

Do you need a car accident attorney? There are quite a few things you may do when you’re in a car accident, and you should take this advice to heart, depending on the type of accident you’re in.

You may walk away from the accident if there is no damage, or you may choose to use the police to ensure that the accident is reported properly. Here are a couple rules of thumb to consider when you’re deciding whether you should or shouldn’t call the police after a car accident.

Scenario 1: Damage to the Vehicles, or Someone is Hurt

You need a report when you have damage to both vehicles, and you will need a report if you are filing with the insurance company. Your lawyer cannot do anything for you if there is not a report on the accident, and you must have one in your hand when you leave the scene of the accident.

The officer will help you determine who was at-fault, and you will avoid any confusion that may arise when you have an accident or claim with the insurance company. Damage to your vehicle cannot be settled without a proper police report.

Scenario 2: Vehicles Aren’t Damaged and Everyone is OK

You and the other driver may choose to walk away from the accident when you are unharmed and have no damage to your vehicles. The mutual agreement you have with the other driver will help you save time dealing with the police, but keep in mind,  you may not protected if the other driver wishes to sue you at a later time. You will have no record of what happened at the scene of the accident, and your lawyer will need to investigate the case completely before they have come to a conclusion.

If you do end up going this route, and avoiding the police, it’s best to take photos of both vehicles to cover your butt in case the other party tries to come after you for damages later. At the end of the day, whether or not you choose to call the police is a judgment call on your part, but it could come back to bite you later, even if no one’s hurt and both vehicles are still in tact.

Anyone who lives in a snowy climate will know how easy it can be to slip on a patch of ice while walking down the street.  While this might be a very common reason for people to fall on a sidewalk, it is only one of the many things that can cause people can injure themselves while walking down the street – others include cracks, potholes, uneven surfaces, or items like slippery leaves, toys or branches.

The CDC reports that almost 20,000 slip and fall accidents occur every year, and about half of these are caused by the sorts of things mentioned above. Thankfully, in the majority of these cases, the result is little more than a loss of dignity and perhaps a skinned knee or bruise.  However, in some cases serious and even life-changing injuries can occur leading to long-term or permanent disability and even death.

Sometimes these falls are genuine accidents, but in other cases they are the result of negligence on the part of a third party. Such injuries may be considered “personal injuries” and if you have been injured in this way you may be entitled to compensation.

What is a personal injury?

Not all injuries are considered to be “personal injuries” under the law.  In order to qualify for compensation, there must be a finding of liability on the part of a third party.  This means that the injury was caused by another person’s actions or inactions.  In order to qualify for compensation, you must have suffered from damages as a result.  This means that if you fell but injured yourself only slightly and had no medical bills or out of pocket expenses, then there is no basis for a claim.  It is important to note that damages are related only the injury itself.  If you fell and broke your phone as a result, you are not considered to have suffered a personal injury.

Who is liable for my fall?

The determination of liability is not always a straight-forward thing, especially when it comes to slip and fall accidents.  This is because there is some leeway given to property owners to have a reasonable amount of time to discover and repair a problem with their sidewalk.  The most obvious case in which this would be relevant is with snow and ice.  If you fall on a snowy sidewalk at 5am after a snowstorm, it may not be reasonable to expect that the owner would have had time to clear the snow, or perhaps even to know about it.  However, if you slip and fall mid-day, it becomes easier to argue that the owner is liable for his or her failure to clear the sidewalk.  In the case of city sidewalks, there is also some leeway.  Because it is not considered reasonable for cities to continually inspect every sidewalk in the jurisdiction, it is possible that they may not be considered liable for an injury unless they have ignored a reported sidewalk problem.

Because of this space for interpretation, it is very important to seek legal advice when you have experienced and injury in a slip and fall, whether it was New York sidewalk injury caused by a pothole, a trip over a child’s toy left on the sidewalk, or a slip on a snowy sidewalk in front of a private home.  Be sure that you don’t miss the opportunity to receive the compensation to which you may be entitled.

When you head out to a pub on a Saturday evening, you might not be thinking clearly about how you are going to come back home that night. All you want to do is to have fun with your friends and there is nothing that can stop you from it. You park your car carefully and then the whole night is ahead of you. Before you even know it, you sip one too many drink and you find yourself under the influence of alcohol. It is time to go home, but should you drive? I guess you should have planned everything more carefully before the evening. If this is your reality and if you have had an accident, you might want to contact hollowsboonen.com.au immediately.

It is estimated that in Queensland, Australia, over 30% of accidents are related to drunk or drug driving. You have to admit that the number is rather huge and way too many people in the country die this way. but this is not where it all ends. Of course, you can always choose to walk home when under the influence of alcohol (provided that this is an option of course), but still 1 in 3 pedestrians who get killed on the roads die due to have alcohol in their blood. Let’s not forget that alcohol is a depressant and it slows your reactions dramatically. Your judgement is impaired, and you are more likely to make the decisions that are unreasonable. even your balance is different then usual and you might feel extremely sleepy after even moderate consumption of alcohol (this is what happens to me and this is why I always drink at home only so that I can go to bed immediately if I feel like this is the best thing for me to do in this case).

Finally, it is not cool to drive when you have alcohol in your blood. This is something that many people will tell you. Just ask around and you will know what I am talking about here. Why would anybody endanger the lives of others just so that they can have fun and drink when going out?