CAUTIONARY TALE EPISODE 99 LISTEN TO THE BLIND Using Screen Reader Technology to Accommodate Sightless Employees « Law Offices of Timothy Bowles | Top Employment Law Firm in Los Angeles

CAUTIONARY TALE EPISODE 99
LISTEN TO THE BLIND
Using Screen Reader Technology to Accommodate Sightless Employees

Settling a lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),  The Results  Companies, LLC in Fort Lauderdale, has agreed to pay $250,000 for refusing to accommodate a blind new hire who asked for a screen reader to enable her work as a telephone customer service agent.  She had requested the company consult with her screen reader software publisher and her vocational counselor. The company fired her instead.

Federal (and state) law requires employers to engage in an interactive process with disabled employees requesting reasonable accommodations so they can work.  Employers are excused only if such an accommodation would be an undue hardship.

The EEOC charged Results with not attempting to reasonably accommodate the worker so she could perform the job, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  In addition to the $250,000 payment, the settlement requires Results to implement protocols to address disability accommodation requests and train employees on ADA requirements.

An EEOC trial attorney, Alexa Lang, said, “Accommodating employees who are blind with screen reader software such as JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is not automatically an undue hardship. Employers must meaningfully assess their technical capabilities and available resources.”

Take-Away:

An employer fielding a disabled worker’s accommodation request must document its interactive process to determine whether a reasonable accommodation is feasible short of undue company hardship.  By the lesson The Results Companies learned, providing screen reader software to a blind or visually impaired person may be such accommodation.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

Helena Kobrin
May 23, 2025

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