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Firm partner, Danny De Voe, Esq., will be speaking at the Fall Meeting of the Labor and Employment Law Committee, to be held on October 17, 2025 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. Danny’s panel will be discussing “Advanced Topics in Workplace Accommodations” and how the recent decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District, 132 F.4th 242 (2d Cir. 2025), will impact how employers handle accommodation requests going forward.
More particularly, prior to Tudor, the courts had held that no workplace accommodation was required if an employee could perform the essential functions of his or her job without such an accommodation. In Tudor, the defendant, Whitehall Central School District, had accommodated the plaintiff, a school teacher with post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”), for approximately twenty (20) years by allowing her to leave campus for fifteen (15) minute breaks during her prep period to manage her PTSD symptoms. In 2016, White Hall began prohibiting teachers from leaving school grounds during prep periods, leading to the plaintiff taking medical leave. When she returned, the plaintiff was provided with inconsistent accommodations and scheduling conflicts which precluded her from taking off-campus breaks. When the plaintiff requested that her prior accommodation be reinstated, the same was denied and the plaintiff then sued. The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York granted summary judgment in favor of the employer on the basis that the plaintiff could perform the essential functions of her job with such accommodation. The plaintiff appealed and the Second Circuit reversed, finding that, absent undue hardship, the strict textual language of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) required an employer to afford a reasonable accommodation to an employee with a disability regardless of whether he or she can perform the essential functions of her job without such accommodation.
Danny’s panel will also be discussing religious and medical accommodations related to vaccination and immunization, as well as leave and remote work as an accommodation.
Find out more about this program and Danny’s panel on workplace accommodations
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