Skip to main content

Indefinite Leave From the Office: Employer's Burden to Prove Undue Hardship


Romanello v. Intesa Sanpaolo, S.p.A. - New York Court of Appeals 

Facts:  Plaintiff, Giuseppe Romanello, was a former bank executive at Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A, Defendant in this case.  After working for Defendant for nearly twenty five years, Plaintiff became ill and unable to work.  Plaintiff was subsequently diagnosed with a series of disorders, including depression.  After Plaintiff had been absent from work for nearly five months, during which time Defendant continued to pay Plaintiff his full salary, Defendant's counsel sent a letter to Plaintiff's counsel asking whether Plaintiff would return to work or resign.  Plaintiff's counsel replied that Plaintiff's condition had prevented him from working and would continue to prevent him from working for an undeterminable time.  Defendant subsequently terminated Plaintiff's employment.

Plaintiff brought suit against Defendant on the grounds that Defendant discriminated against him on the basis of his disability in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law.  Plaintiff's claim alleged separate causes of action for the State Human Rights Law (SHRL) and the City Human Rights Law (CHRL).  The New York Supreme Court dismissed the causes of action.  The Appellate Division affirmed.  The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the first cause of action but reinstated the second cause of action.

Holding:  The New York Court of Appeals broke its analysis of Plaintiff's claims down between the SHRL and CHRL causes of action.  The SHRL defines "disability" as one which "upon the provision of reasonable accommodation, do[es] not prevent the complainant from performing in a reasonable manner the activities involved in the job or occupation sought or held."  Notably, the Court of Appeals held that indefinite leave of absence is not considered a reasonable accommodation under the SHRL.  Since Plaintiff did not provide a date when he would return to work and instead appeared to hope he could request an indefinite leave of absence instead, the Court of Appeals held the SHRL claim was properly dismissed.   

However, the CHRL affords broader protections than the SHRL.  Unlike the SHRL, the CHRL's definition of "disability" does not include "reasonable accommodation" or the ability to perform a job in a reasonable manner.  Instead, the CHRL defines "disability" solely in terms of impairments and places the burden on the employer to prove either:  1) that the employee could not, with reasonable accommodation, satisfy the essential requisites of the job, or 2) that the accommodation would place an undue hardship on the company.  The Court of Appeals held that because Defendant had not met its obligation to plead and prove that Plaintiff could not perform his essential job functions with an accommodation, Plaintiff's second cause of action should not have been dismissed. 

Judgment: The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's holding that Plaintiff failed to state a claim under the State Human Rights Law but reinstated the second cause of action regarding the City Human Rights Law.

Date:  October 10, 2013

Opinion:  http://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2013/Oct13/152mem13-Decision.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more