You're listening to the Disability Law Lowdown Podcast, show number 58.
Jacquie Brennan: Hi, this is Jacquie Brennan; the podcast show today is about rights under the ADA for returning service members with disabilities. If you’ve fallen to this category then this podcast is going to have a lot of good information for you. This information was put together by the department of justice civil rights division and it is available at the department of justice website at www.usdoj.gov. If you were seriously injured while you were on active duty in the U.S military may be have you lost a limb or had a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury, or even sustained a hearing or vision loss or are experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder and now you are back in the United States and you are trying to adjust to living with your injury, I want to tell you a little bit about your rights under the ADA and some information about where you can get assistance. If you are new to the world of disability you may not really even know very much about your civil rights.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination and guarantees people with disabilities with the same opportunities as everybody else to participate in American life, to enjoy employment opportunities, to purchase goods and services, to participate in state and local government programs and services. It’s modeled after the civil rights act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The ADA is an equal opportunity law, it’s not a benefit program it doesn’t entitle you to specific services or financial assistance because of your disability. It’s a discrimination law or a civil rights law. The ADA uses a different standards and different definitions than the military and the department of veteran’s affairs in determining disabilities status. The ADA covers people who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities such as walking, speaking, lifting, hearing, seeing, reading, eating, sleeping, concentrating, working. Major life activities also include the operation of major bodily functions like the brain, the immune system, respiratory, neurological, digestive and circulatory functions. Businesses and stay in loco government agencies must take reasonable steps to make it possible for people with disabilities to be employees or customers.
Now, when it comes to employment there is another podcast show that you can find in the archives’ of the shows, I think it was may be shown twenty that covers employment of veterans who are returning who have disabilities in some detail, but it’s important to know that the ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified employees or job applicants on the basis of their disability. So, it covers all employment practices including the job application process hiring advancement compensation training firing and all other conditions of employment. Under the ADA employers cannot use eligibility standards or qualifications that unfairly screen out people with disabilities and they cannot make speculative assumptions about a person’s ability to do a job based on myths, fears, or stereo types of bad employees with disabilities. Additionally employers have to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities and that might mean changing the work environment or job duties to eliminate barriers they keep an individual from being able to perform the essential functions of the job. Employers are not how ever required to make accommodations that would result in an undue hardship which means accommodations that would result in significant difficult to your expense, also employers are not required to provide accommodations unless the employee requests them. So, if you are a veteran with a hidden disability like PTSD you can request accommodations. If you don’t need accommodations you don’t have to disclose the disability. Employers with 15 or more employees must comply with these provisions.
Some kinds of reasonable accommodations might be things like flexible scheduling at a retail store or restaurant, so a sales clerk or a cashier with PTSD can attend counseling sessions. Or an employee with a spinal cord injury who has a lengthy personal care routine in the mornings can start his or her work day later. For an employee who has a brain injury reducing clutter and distractions providing instructions and information in writing breaking down complex assignments into small steps. Or allowing a job coach on a work side to help a new employee get settled in a job might be a reasonable accommodation. Another reasonable accommodation might be specialized equipment for a data entry operator who has lost an arm, a hand, or a finger. Such as a one handed key board a large key board a touch pad, a trackball or speech recognition software. Making sure that materials and equipment are in easy reach for a factory worker who uses a wheel chair.
Another accommodation might be raising an office desk on blocks for a worker who uses a wheel chair and making sure that supplies and materials and office machines are at a height that’s easy to reach and use and are in a location that’s not obstructed by protrusions waste baskets or other items. Allowing more frequent work breaks or providing back up coverage when an employee who has PTSD needs a break. Another accommodation might be providing a stool for a sales clerk who uses crutches so he or she can sit when not serving customers. If an employer has an employee parking lot, reserving a parking space close to the entrance for an employee who has difficulty walking because of the loss of a leg or a foot or a toe might be a reasonable accommodation. Or providing instructions and information in writing for an employee with hearing loss. Allowing an employee to bring his or her service animal to work. Allowing an employee with tinnitus to play soft back ground music or sounds to help block out ringing in his ears.
Those are examples of things that might be reasonable accommodations. For more information about the employment provisions of the ADA contact the equal employment opportunities commission, or go to eeoc.gov. Now, what about customer access? There are more than seven million businesses in the United States that provide goods or services to the public including grocery stores, retail stores, bars, restaurants and bars, hotels and motels, gas stations, barber shops, beauty salons, dry cleaners, Laundromats, banks, law offices, medical offices, insurance agencies, movie theatres, art museums all kinds of other businesses too. Our businesses that provide goods or services to the public even small ones with only one or two employees must comply with the ADA and that includes a lot of different things. Businesses must make reasonable accommodations in their policies practices or procedures when necessary, so that people with disabilities can be their customers. Some examples of reasonable modifications are modifying a no pet’s policies, so that someone with PTSD can bring in a service animal that’s been trained to calm the person when he or she has an anxiety attack. Modifying a membership policy at a health club to allow a person who uses a wheel chair to bring in aid with them to provide assistance in getting on and off exercise equipment or in and out of a swimming pool or assist with showering or dressing in the locker room at no additional charge to the club member. Instructing staff that if a customer who has lost the use of his or her arms ask them to reach into a shirt or jacket pocket to retrieve a wallet or credit card needed to pay the bill they should honor that request.
Modifying procedures at a bank, so customers who have difficulty standing in line for a long time can sit down without losing their place in line. Providing re fueling assistance at soft serve price for a customer with a disability who cannot pump or get his own gas. Businesses also must communicate effectively with customers who have vision hearing or speech disabilities. The businesses not the customers are responsible for providing the tools or services that are needed for effective communication. The type of tool or services that’s needed depends on the nature of the communication as well as the particular customer’s disability. Examples of effective communication are at a restaurant the waiter could read the menu to a person who has a vision loss. At a grocery store a staff person could assist a person with vision loss by locating and retrieving items from the shelves or reading price and content information to him or her.
At an apartment rental office the agent can provide a large print copy of a rental contract for a person who has vision loss, or an audio taped or an electronic copy for a person who is blind. At a retail store the sales person can write notes to answer simple questions from a customer who is deaf or has a hearing loss. At a movie theater staff can provide an assistive listening device for someone who has hearing loss. A pizza delivery service has to accept calls through a telephone relay service from a customer who uses TTY because of a speech disability. Businesses whose facilities were built or altered since the ADA went into effect must comply with the ADA standards for accessible design. So, that the facility is accessible to and useable by people who have mobility disabilities as well as people who have sensory disabilities and people who have limited dexterity or grasping ability.
In addition businesses have a continuing obligation to remove architectural barriers when it’s readily achievable to do so. For example inaccessible features of an older facility can be corrected easily and in expensively they must be corrected. If there are several inaccessible features and it’s not easier and inexpensive to correct them all at once they should be corrected over time. When an inaccessible feature cannot be corrected, if there is another easy and inexpensive way to provide service to the customer who cannot access the business, the business must offer that alternative for the customer. Inexpensive steps that businesses should take to improve access include installing a ramp over a step or two at the main entrance. Making a curb cut in the businesses side walk re arranging tables, chairs, wending mechanics, display racks and other furniture to allow for easy passage throughout the business.
Installing grab bars in a toilet stall. Lowering a bathrooms paper towel dispenser. Restriping a portion of a parking lot to create accessible parking spaces. Installing a paper cup dispenser at an inaccessible water fountain. Examples of alternative ways to serve a customer when barrier removal is not feasible or say it a dry cleaners providing curb side service for a customer dropping off or picking up clothes. At a neighborhood restaurant providing home delivery or carry out service for a customer who cannot enter the restaurant. State and local governments offer a wide variety of services and activities that returning service members might need or wish to participate in, and all of these must comply with the ADA. Here are just a few examples of the many types of public services that are covered by the ADA. Public trade schools and community colleges, public libraries, public hospitals, public parks and recreational facilities, public transit buses and trains, city and county offices where people go to renew licenses, apply for food stamps, pay their taxes, attend town meetings, serve on boards and commissions or conduct other government business.
The rules for state and local governments concerning policy modification effective communication and facilities built are altered since the ADA went into effect. A very similar to the rules for businesses that we just talked about. However the rules for government facilities that have architectural barriers are a little bit different. Government offices are not required to make all of their facilities accessible that they are required to make all of their programs accessible. They can do this by removing barriers at an existing facility by relocating the program to an accessible facility about providing the program in a different way. Government offices are not however required to undertake steps that would result in an undue burden over fundamentally change the nature of their program. Examples of making a program accessible are a community college has two campuses one is accessible while the other is not. It is not necessary to remove physical barriers at the inaccessible campus if the two campuses offer the same courses have the same hours and sort of the same geographic area.
If the community college offers different courses at its two campuses. Other different programs for example like day courses at one campus and evening courses at the other or serves different geographic areas then its cut to take those steps to undertake the physical improvements at the inaccessible campus or move classes to accessible locations. If a person who uses a wheel chair volunteers to serve on a city parks and recreation commission and the commission’s regular meeting places inaccessible then the commission must remove barriers at the regular meeting place or relocate its meetings to an accessible locations like the auditorium of a nearby high school. An example of providing a program in a different manner is a public library that cannot be made accessible can drop books in the mail and allow them to be returned by mail to accommodate an individual who uses a wheel chair. The ADA covers employment as well as access to goods and services in the state and local government programs activities and services.
But, there are other federal disability rights laws that cover housing, such as the fair housing act air travel, the air carrier access act, telecommunications, federal programs and services and lots of other topics that would be of interest to you. You can contact the department of justice for more information about that and you can ask for a guide called A Guide to Disabilities Rights Laws. You can actually get that online as well at ada.gov/cguide.pdf or you can ask for a copy by calling your ADA centre at 1-800-949-4232. Another law that you may already be familiar with is the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act USERRA. It prohibits discrimination against employees or job applicants on the basis of their military status or military obligations. And it also protects the reemployment rights of people who leave civilian jobs to serve in the uniformed services. It applies to all veterans and not just those with service connected disabilities.
Under USERRA employers must make reasonable efforts to help returning employees become qualified for reemployment in the positions they would have attained if they had not left from military duty or a comparable position. This includes providing training or re training at no cost to the veteran. And you can get more information about USERRA by contacting the U.S department of labor. You probably already received information from your service branch or other department of veterans affairs about programs designed to assist returning service members. They may not know that there are many other benefit programs for people with disabilities whether you’ve served in the military or not. All over the United States there are organizations called independent living centers and they provide information about benefits programs and other services for people with disabilities. You can find out how to contact the center nearest to you by calling 1-800-949-4232. Our state vocational rehabilitation agencies also offer services to help people with disabilities in or return to employment and you can find out your states contact information by going to rehabnetwork.org. Or again from the 800 number 1-800-949-4232.
The Disability Law Lowdown is brought to you by the Disability Business Technical Assistance Centers, which are a network of ADA centers that provide training, technical assistance and materials on the ADA and other disability-related laws. Funding for the centers is provided by a grant from NIDRR, the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Visit our website, DisabilityLawLowdown.com to listen to past shows or read the transcript of this and past shows. You can also subscribe to the Disability Law Lowdown at our web site or on iTunes.
The Southwest and Rocky Mountain ADA Centers are part of a program of Independent Living Research Utilization at TIRR - Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas, and is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. If you have questions about disability law or would like to request materials or training, please call 1-800-949-4232.
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