NJ Disability Discrimination Lawyer

Attorneys Representing New Jersey Employees

Disabilities can be challenging to deal with, and often make the activities of everyday life more arduous. Disabilities should not make it difficult to obtain or keep a job, however, and employers cannot use a person’s disability as grounds for adverse employment action. If you have a disability and believe that your employer failed to provide reasonable accommodations or otherwise engaged in discriminatory actions against you because of your disability, it is advisable to speak to legal counsel to discuss the facts of your case and what compensation you may be able to recover.

Disabilities Defined

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and the LAD (New Jersey Law Against Discrimination) both prohibit employers from discriminating against New Jersey employees due to disabilities. Each law defines disability slightly differently. Generally, however, a disability is a mental or physical impairment that limits a person in one or more activities of daily life. Notably, discrimination laws apply not only for an actual disability but also for a perceived disability as well. In other words, if an employer discriminates against someone due to the belief that he or she has a disability, it may be actionable, regardless of whether the person is actually disabled. Employers are also prohibited from discriminating against people based on past disabilities or disabilities the employer believes a person may suffer from in the future. Disabilities include not only blindness, deafness, speech impairment, autism spectrum disorders, and developmental disabilities, but also a wide range of medical issues that we typically do not refer to as a disability (such as migraine headaches, for example). Our disability discrimination attorneys can assist New Jersey residents suffering from any of these conditions.

Right to Reasonable Accommodations

An employee who is disabled has the right to seek reasonable accommodations from his or her employer that are necessary for the employee to be able to perform the essential functions of the job. An accommodation is a change in the manner in which the job is performed or the work environment that allows the employee to perform the job. Employers are required to consider granting reasonable accommodations before demoting or firing a person with a disability due to the fact that the disability precludes the person from performing his or her job. If an employer does not engage in an interactive process with the employee in good faith to determine whether the employer could grant a reasonable accommodation without undue hardship, the employer may be held liable for disability discrimination on the basis of its failure to accommodate. A seasoned employment discrimination attorney can evaluate your case to assess whether your employer failed to engage in the interactive process or otherwise violated the law.

Establishing Disability Discrimination

An employer may be held liable not only for failing to accommodate a disabled employee, but also for disparate treatment of the employee. In other words, the employer can be liable for discrimination if a disabled employee and their New Jersey disability discrimination attorney can establish that the employee was treated less favorably than other employees on the basis of a disability.

Regardless of the nature of the claim, an employee seeking to establish disability discrimination must show that he or she has an actual or perceived disability, but that he or she was otherwise qualified to perform the essential duties of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation, and, in some (but not all) cases, that he or she suffered an adverse employment action because of the disability or failure to accommodate. In many cases, the employer will argue that the employee was unable to perform the essential functions of the job, regardless of whether or not the employee received an accommodation. An employee only needs to establish that he or she was able to complete the critical functions of the job, not all of the job functions, however, to sustain the burden of proof.