This series, beginning here, explores the top ten ways that employers deny employees their medical leave rights.

#7 – Instituting a “No Fault” Attendance Policy

Also subject to challenge are “no fault” attendance policies in which employees are subject to discipline for reaching a certain number of absences, regardless of the cause of the absences. Such policies adversely affect people with disabilities, and can evidence a failure to accommodate if they do not make exceptions for individuals whose “chargeable absences” were caused by their disabilities. In 2011, Verizon entered into a settlement with the EEOC in which it agreed to pay $20 million to settle a nationwide class disability discrimination lawsuit that challenged its no-fault attendance policy. (See Verizon to Pay $20 Million to Settle Nationwide EEOC Disability Suit (July 6, 2011).)

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To read about the next way that employers deny employees their leave rights, click here: #8 – Misidentifying Medical Leave As “Indefinite.”

This series was adapted from Ramit Mizrahi’s article in The Advocate Magazine, “Ten Ways That Employers Deny Employees Their Medical Leave Rights (June 2017).

More on “no fault” attendance policies can be found here.

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