Harassment & Discrimination

California employers with five or more employees have an affirmative legal duty to provide reasonable accommodation to their employees with physical or mental disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. This duty requires the employer to engage in an “interactive process,” which is the means by which a reasonable accommodation is selected. Not knowing when to initiate the interactive process is one of the biggest missteps that employers can make, which may lead to costly disability discrimination lawsuits down the line.

Uber Technologies, Inc. recently made big headlines after it hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate sexual harassment allegations by a former employee at the ride-hailing service. The employee claims that during her year working as an engineer at Uber, she and other female staffers reported multiple instances of sexual harassment to the company’s human resources department, to no avail. Uber’s response to the allegations provides some valuable lessons for employers …