State Disability Law May Differ From The ADA

Matter of Rappo v. NYS Division of Human Rights, ___A.D.3d___(3rd Dept. Dec. 2, 2008), demonstrates that state law may differ than federal law. Sometimes state law is more restrictive and sometimes it provides more protection for employees. Here, at the time of the complaint, state law did not impose a duty to accommodate and therefore that discrimination claim was properly dismissed. As the court explained:

To the extent petitioner pro se claims that her former employer, New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA), failed to reasonably accommodate her disability, this claim must fail, because at the time she made her request, Executive Law § 292(21) did not require an employer to provide "reasonable accommodations" (see Riddick v City of New York, 4 AD3d 242, 247 [2004]). In any event, substantial evidence supports the determination that HRA was not required to provide petitioner with a job transfer as a reasonable accommodation, since petitioner failed to demonstrate that she could not perform the essential duties of her job and that she would be able to perform the essential duties of another job. . .

Mitchell H. Rubinstein