Los Angeles Disability Discrimination

Los Angeles is the largest city in California and the second largest in the country. Home to Hollywood and other creative industries, along with robust companies in industries such as international trade, healthcare aerospace, technology, and apparel, the city has a diverse economy. As the third largest economic metropolitan area in the world, it provides numerous job opportunities to many different types of workers. Unfortunately, not every person in the city has equal access to job opportunities. Around 185,973 people who are working age have disabilities in the City of Los Angeles. And only 22.8% of disabled people in Los Angeles have jobs. Across Los Angeles County, 452,879 people who are working age have disabilities. In the state, around 10.6% of all workers have a disability. Disabled workers in Los Angeles and elsewhere face significant discrimination due to mental or physical disabilities. You should know, as a disabled worker, that disability is a protected characteristic. If you were harmed by disability discrimination, you should discuss your situation with the experienced Los Angeles employment discrimination attorney Vincent Calderone of the Calderone Law Firm.

Disability discrimination occurs when an employer covered by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the California Fair Employment Housing Act (FEHA) treat a qualified employee or job applicant in an adverse manner due to his or her disability. Adverse employment actions can include failure to hire, failure to promote, termination, layoffs, harassment, and disparate pay. Discrimination also occurs if a company treats a job applicant or employee improperly with regard to a job decision because of his history of disability, or because the employee is believed to have a non-transitory impairment, even when though there is no impairment in fact.

The ADA covers those employers that have at least 15 employees. In most cases, the California FEHA provides greater protections to disabled workers than does the ADA.

Disabilities are broadly defined as conditions that restrict major life activities, including both physical and mental disabilities, and medical conditions like HIV and cancer. To establish your claim under FEHA, our lawyers will have to prove you are a qualified individual who is capable of performing essential job functions whether or not you are given a reasonable accommodation.

Your employer is required to provide you with a reasonable accommodation for your disability if it knows about your disability unless it can show that providing the accommodation would impose an undue hardship. “Reasonable accommodations” are changes to the work environment or how things are typically done in a workplace that would allow you to apply for a job, perform your job duties, or enjoy equal access to benefits available to other workers at the company.

In order to determine an appropriate reasonable accommodation to address your particular disability, the employer is supposed to engage in an interactive good faith process. The employer is not required to eliminate essential job functions or lower standards. Rather accommodations are adjustments that would allow you, as a disabled employee, to meet the employer’s standards. Our attorneys can file a discrimination lawsuit on your behalf if you were denied a reasonable accommodation and it wouldn’t have presented an undue hardship for your employer to provide one.

Reasonable accommodations can include paid or unpaid leaves of absence, reassignment to a vacant temporary position, more frequent rest breaks, wheelchair ramps, equipment, change in job tasks, improved accessibility, and remote work. You’re not guaranteed the specific accommodation you request; your employer is entitled to give you the reasonable accommodation that it deems appropriate, so long as it addresses your needs.

You should talk to an employment lawyer if you believe your employer has taken an adverse employment action against you based on your disability. The tenacious principal of our premiere Southern California employment law firm is Vincent Calderone. With more than two decades of experience litigating discrimination cases, he can evaluate whether you have a claim and provide legal representation as appropriate. Contact us online or call us at (424) 348-8290.