American Disability Act Case Study

The American Disability Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in several areas which includes employment, public accommodations, transportation, communications, and access to state and local government programs and services. The ADA covers an extensive range of disability, from physical conditions affecting mobility, stamina, sight, hearing, and speech to conditions such as emotional illness, and learning disorders.

The ADA addresses approaches as below

Title I – The workplace which means equal employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities.

Title II – State and local government services which means non-discrimination on the basis of disability in state and local government services.

Title III – Places of public accommodation and commercial facilities which means nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities

Title IV – Through telecommunications relay services for the people who have hearing or speech impairments.

Title V includes miscellaneous instruction in Federal agencies that enforce the law.

The purpose of ADA is “to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individual with disabilities”. To assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and

economic self sufficiency for such individuals is the goal of the Nation for the individuals with disabilities. The intention of ADA is also to reduce federal payments for social security income and other federal tax-funded disability programs.
The ADA protects an individual from misappropriate behavior from the employer or other individual by any means like in work place, in transportation, in color, sex, age, etc.

In this case, John suffered a heart attack and when he returned to the work after six months, company offered him part time job as he was unable to do full time job. ACME was forced to reduced staff to cost cut, as the company was not performing well. The company conducted a performance appraisal of all managerial employees, kept the employees who were above performer and ask to leave who were below performer in which John was also ask to leave the

job.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) share responsibility for enforcing Title I of the ADA. As per Title I requirements is that the employers make a reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities, unless it results in undue hardship. Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees. A reasonable accommodation is any modification or adjustment to a job or the work environment that will enable an applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions.

Here, John was given a benefit to work part time after his 6 months medical recovery. Due to cost cut, and John below performance, company decided to discharge John. As this allegation falls under Title 1 of the ADA, John is not a disable employee, and he was having medical constraint where company provided 6 months leave to recover. But after six months, even though John was not completely recovered, company still provided him a part-time so his health can be better and he can take care of his expenses. However, due to company’s low performance any individual who either are not required or not able to perform as per the expectations, they were ask to resign. Company did tried to make reasonable accommodation knowing John’s health, but could not continue more, as it was a hardship for the company, and as per the law, company have a full right to discharge any employee or employees who are not performing well.

Hence there is not violation of law or ADA, as company is not behaving differently with John, and it is also not a matter of disability. It’s a matter of the performance, which John unable to perform. Even though company did not evaluate John’s performance in pro-data bases to give him an equal chance, but here company has the right to make his policy on the basis of evaluation of the performance. It does not belong to any of the issue as mention in ADA act like inequality due to color, sex, disability etc. John was discharged on the basis of his performance.