Many employees make deliberate decisions to withhold medical conditions or diagnoses from their employers. However, those conditions may flare up in the workplace. Under such circumstances, are employers expected to know that the employee has a disability, based solely on observation? A recent California decision affirms that an employer’s “knowledge” of the disability will be inferred when the disability is “the only reasonable interpretation of the known facts.”
Quick Background: Obligations To Accommodate Disabilities
The Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) requires that employers make reasonable accommodations for a physical or mental disability and engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process with the disabled employee to determine effective reasonable accommodations. California law has long held that an employer cannot be liable for violating FEHA’s disability provisions unless it knows of that disability. (Avila v. Continental Airlines, Inc. (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1327, 1247.), including when (1) an employee notifies the employer of a physical or mental disability, (2) if the employer learns of the disability through a third-party, or (3) if the employee becomes aware of the condition through observation. In Husband v. Target Corp. (“Husband”), the Court of Appeal recently addressed this third situation – at what point has an employer learned of a disability through observation, therefore triggering the employer’s interactive process obligations under...
WASHINGTON, July 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- This release is issued by King & Spalding: The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that New York Packaging II LLC, doing business as Redi-Bag USA,...