Disability discrimination is one of the most misunderstood areas of employment law. People often assume it only covers obvious physical disabilities, or that it only applies to large employers, or that needing an accommodation means admitting weakness at work. None of those assumptions are accurate, and they lead people to accept treatment they don’t have to.
Maryland law, alongside federal protections, gives employees with disabilities meaningful rights. Understanding how those rights actually work is where a viable claim begins.
What Qualifies as a Disability Under Maryland and Federal Law
Federal law under the Americans with Disabilities Act defines a disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 significantly broadened that definition after courts had narrowed it too far. Today, the threshold for what qualifies is interpreted expansively.
Maryland’s Fair Employment Practices Act goes further. It covers employers with 15 or more employees under the ADA, but Maryland state law applies to employers with as few as 15 employees as well and provides protections that complement federal coverage. Together, these frameworks protect a wide range of conditions including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, depression, anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, and many others.
A condition doesn’t have to be permanent or severe to qualify. Someone managing a serious but intermittent condition may still be protected. Someone who had a disability in the past, or who is regarded by their employer as having a disability even if they don’t, can also fall within the protected class under the “regarded as” prong of the ADA.
What Reasonable Accommodation Actually Requires
Employers covered by disability discrimination law have a duty to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. That duty is more extensive than many employers acknowledge.
Reasonable accommodations can include:
- Modified work schedules or reduced hours during treatment
- Remote work arrangements when the job functions allow it
- Reassignment to a vacant position the employee can perform
- Modified equipment or assistive technology
- Leave beyond what FMLA requires
- Adjusted performance standards during a period of recovery
The key word is reasonable. Employers don’t have to provide every accommodation a disabled employee requests, but they do have to engage genuinely in a good-faith interactive process to identify what accommodations might work. Refusing to discuss accommodations, ignoring requests, or simply denying them without analysis violates the law regardless of whether the specific accommodation requested would have been required.
How the Interactive Process Works and When It Fails
When an employee requests an accommodation, both sides are supposed to engage in a collaborative dialogue to find a workable solution. The employer can ask for medical documentation to understand the nature of the limitation. The employee can explain what they need and why. The conversation should lead somewhere productive.
When employers skip that process entirely, refuse to consider alternatives, or treat a request for accommodation as grounds for adverse action, that breakdown becomes evidence of discrimination. Courts look at whether the employer made a genuine effort or whether the interactive process was a pretense for a decision already made.
A Silver Spring employment discrimination lawyer evaluates how the interactive process was handled, what documentation exists, and whether the employer’s response to an accommodation request meets the legal standard.
What Adverse Actions Constitute Disability Discrimination
Disability discrimination doesn’t only happen when someone is fired. Employers violate the law when they take any adverse employment action because of a disability or because an employee requested an accommodation. That includes:
- Termination after a medical leave or accommodation request
- Demotion or reassignment to a worse position following disclosure of a disability
- Denial of promotion opportunities given to non-disabled peers
- Hostile treatment or harassment based on a medical condition
- Forcing an employee to resign through intolerable working conditions created by their disability status
Each of these can form the basis of a discrimination claim, sometimes alongside a retaliation claim if the adverse action followed a protected request or complaint.
Building a Disability Discrimination Case
Documentation matters enormously. The accommodation request itself, how it was submitted, how the employer responded, what changed after the request, and how the employee was treated compared to non-disabled colleagues all shape the strength of a claim.
Eric Siegel Law has represented employees in discrimination and employment disputes throughout the Silver Spring and Montgomery County area for over 30 years. If you believe you’ve faced disability discrimination at work, reach out to a Silver Spring employment discrimination lawyer to go over what happened and understand what legal options are available to you.