The following article was first published on Shipman & Goodwin attorney Dan Schwartz’ Connecticut Employment Law Blog. It is reposted here with permission.
The rules on accommodations just changed for employers—at least in Connecticut and New York (and Vermont too).
The Second Circuit (which covers Connecticut, New York and Vermont), in an important decision released last month, expanded the situations in which an employee can get an accommodation holding that such accommodations may be required even when they can do their jobs without them.
For HR professionals, this decision should be factored into how you look at accommodation requests.
My colleague, Sarah Westby, has our firm’s take on the case on our sister blog, but because of the importance of the case, I thought I would provide my own perspective too.
Angel Tudor, a high school math teacher with post-traumatic stress disorder, requested brief breaks during the school day to manage her symptoms.
For years, the school district had accommodated her with 15-minute breaks during her morning and afternoon prep periods, allowing her to leave campus.
After a change in administration and policy in 2016, the school began restricting these accommodations.
The dispute centered on the 2019-20 school year, when Tudor was scheduled for afternoon study hall duty with no coverage for her breaks.
Tudor admitted during discovery that she could perform the essential functions of her job without the accommodation,...
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent body that reviews scientific evidence to recommend which groups should receive vaccines and when, rarely makes headlines. Bu...