Under the FEHA, forbidden disability discrimination includes discrimination against a person based on his association with another person who suffers from a disability. Here, the employee truck driver was associated with his disabled son who required the employee’s services in providing dialysis every night. Even if the employee abandoned his separate claim for failure to provide reasonable accommodations, the reasonable accommodation issue remained part of the case since the employee’s prima facie case of discrimination required him to prove he was qualified for the job with or without reasonable accommodation—and that accommodation is, in this case, an accommodation of the employee’s association with his disabled son. Here, there was sufficient evidence that employee’s new boss purposefully scheduled him to drive later than usual truck routes so as to prevent him from being able to administer dialysis to his son, thus ridding the company of an expensive employee who needed special accommodations. The employee also presented sufficient evidence to overcome summary judgment on his retaliation claim. Under FEHA, retaliation for requesting an accommodation is unlawful whether or not the requested accommodation is granted.
California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 8 (Flier, J.); April 4, 2016; 2016 WL 1298637