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Senior Living…Forgetting Reasonable Accommodations?

As we review newsfeeds, we noticed a distinct pattern of EEOC and legal claims against some senior living organizations for failing to provide a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While senior living is not unique in facing the challenges of properly managing the ADA, our practice spends significant time with senior living organizations, so this topic has been front of mind.

– A senior living organization settled a case for over $30,000 for violations of the ADA for not providing a reasonable accommodation (and seemingly not even engaging in an interactive process to consider a reasonable accommodation) for an employee who had worked without issue, but was later discovered to have had a pre-existing condition that could have impacted the employee’s physical capability to perform her job.
– After failing to consider other positions or accommodations for an employee with permanent movement restrictions, a senior living company paid over $100,000 to settle the employee’s claim.
– In a multi-million dollar settlement, a senior living provider was found to have policies that neglected obligations under the ADA. For injuries and illnesses, the company failed to engage in the interactive process to evaluate potential reasonable accommodations that would enable employees to return to work.

The simple message from these costly experiences…have a well-established process for requesting and evaluating reasonable accommodations. Remember, a “disability” does not just include “obvious” or “permanent” impairments. A disability can be temporary.

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