How does the Americans with Disabilities Act protect me?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went into effect in 1990. Once it did, it made it illegal for all types of employers including labor organizations, staffing agencies, local or state governments and private employers to discriminate against an individual with a disability.

Individuals who are protected by the ADA include those that have a verifiable, substantial mental or physical impairment. That disability must affect a person’s ability to speak, work, see, walk, learn, breath, care for oneself, hear or to perform manual tasks.

The ADA only protects disabled individuals from discrimination if they are capable of performing a job’s essential duties regardless of whether they’re provided with reasonable accommodation to do so or not.

Some of the reasonable accommodations that employers are expected to make to accommodate their disabled employees include offering them modified or part-time work schedules, restructuring their job or providing them with modified devices or equipment. They may also be expected to provide their employee with interpreters or readers or to modify policies, examinations or training materials to make them more accessible.

Los Angeles County employers are prohibited from discriminating against disabled individuals during the recruiting or hiring process. If they allow a person’s disability to affect the job that they’re assigned to, how they’re trained, paid, the benefits that they receive or their right to take leave, then their actions may violate the ADA as well. Employers who lay off or fire disabled workers may be accused of discrimination as well.

In workplace discrimination cases, the burden falls on your shoulders to prove that the way that your employer treated your violated the ADA. If you’re wondering what type of information you should compile to give yourself the best chance of winning your case, then an employment litigation attorney with years of experience in handling cases is who you will want to speak to.