Due to insomnia and sleep apnea, information technology specialist John Leschinskey had trouble staying awake at work.

In the summer of 1998, Leschinskey was given a written warning for falling asleep on the job. When he was caught sleeping on the job again about a year later, he was suspended without pay for two days.

Near the end of the October that followed the suspension, Leschinskey’s supervisor gave him two days to show why he should not be terminated. Leschinskey responded by making his first request for accommodation. He asked the employer to move back his start time, let him use something called a doze alert at work, or both. (A doze alert is a device that attaches behind the ear and emits a buzzing sound if the head tilts forward.)

The employer fired Leschinskey, and it denied his accommodation request about a week later.

Leschinskey sued under the federal Rehabilitation Act, claiming he was unlawfully denied a reasonable accommodation and was terminated based on his disability.

The court refused to dismiss the case. Leschinskey adequately alleged that he would have been able to do the job had his request been granted, it said. Nor did he wait too long to ask for an accommodation. The case will continue.

Cite: Leschinskey v. Rectors and Visitors of Radford University.

Sherri Adams has multiple sclerosis, optic neuritis, and back and heart problems, and she has trouble walking long distances. In the fall of 2008, she was a student at Montgomery College.

At the time, the college was undergoing construction and didn’t provide enough designated parking for people with disabilities. As a result, Adams could not park near her classes.

A college dean told Adams that college security would drive her to and from her classes, but one day in late September security staff refused to take her to her car. They also told her they would not provide future transportation.

Adams tried to walk back to her car, but she fell and was injured before she got there.

She sued, claiming violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

The school filed a motion to dismiss the case, but the court denied it. By asserting that the school refused to transport her back to her car, Adams alleged facts sufficient to support a claim of unlawful failure to accommodate.

The suit — including a claim for money damages — was given the green light to go forward.

Cite: Adams v. Montgomery College.

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Barbara Robinson, who has bipolar/manic depressive disorder, was a student at Green River Community College. In early January 2010, she was involved in what a court ruling describes only as “a disruptive incident on campus” during which she was “in an emotionally escalated state.”

Police removed Robinson from the school’s campus, and she was suspended for an academic quarter following a hearing. She sued, claiming disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The court rejected her claims because she did not show a link between her suspension and her disability. She was suspended due to her conduct and not her disability, it concluded.

Cite: Robinson v. Green River Community College.

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A student with a medical/psychological condition was enrolled in a Ph.D program at a university.

After she was assigned a grade of “B” on an exam, she tried to improve it by altering the exam and resubmitting it.

The ploy didn’t work. The school discovered it and commenced disciplinary proceedings.

After initially denying what she had done, the student finally confessed and the school suspended her for a year.

The student responded with a lawsuit that claimed disability discrimination and failure to accommodate her alleged disability. She asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order that would force the school to reinstate her pending the outcome of the litigation.

No way, the court said. The student wasn’t likely to win her accommodation claim because she never asked for a disability-related accommodation. Nor was she likely to win her claim of disability bias, since she didn’t show the reason given by the school for suspending her (cheating) was a pretext for disability discrimination.

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Sherri Adams, a student at Montgomery College in Maryland, is not able to walk long distances around the college’s campuses. After complaining about the lack of parking designated for people with disabilities, Adams fell while walking to her vehicle on campus and sustained several injuries.

The lawsuit that followed accused the college of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Adams asked for $100,000 or “the maximum legal rate, and the cost of this action.”

But she didn’t get anything – at least not for now. The court said the college was immune to the claim for money damages under the Eleventh Amendment because it is a state entity.

Adams was given permission to amend her complaint to add an individual defendant and seek money damages. But to get them, she’ll need to prove discriminatory intent.

Cite: Adams v. Montgomery College.

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After compiling a stellar academic record en route to completion of high school and undergrad studies at Cornell University, James Brief began having some trouble during his first year of medical school.

Brief failed a number of exams during his first year, and he was placed on a schedule that stretched out his first two years of school work to four.

Although he rebounded by successfully completing his second year, he regressed in his third year and failed three more exams. In February of that year, he told the school for the first time that he’d been diagnosed with ADHD.

The school began to provide him more time on exams but eventually dismissed him, citing the significant number of failed exams he’d accumulated before his request for accommodation.

When Brief sued for disability discrimination, he lost. The court said he didn’t prove his condition was serious enough to qualify as a “disability” under the law. It also said the school’s decision to dismiss him was entitled to deference.

Cite: Brief v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

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Arizona State University (ASU) participated in a trial pilot program that provided textbooks to students via the Kindle DX, which renders electronic books into visual text. The Kindle DX has a text-to-speech function, but there is no audio option for its menus and controls. As a result, it’s inaccessible to people who are blind.

The only classes that participated in the pilot program at ASU were classes taken by Honors College students. No blind students tried to enroll in any pilot course.

ASU student Darrell Shandrow, who is blind, claimed the pilot program violated federal laws against disability discrimination. Even though he wasn’t in the Honors College, he said he had the right to sue because the school’s use of inaccessible technology made him feel unwelcome and offended him. He also claimed he had suffered an economic injury, since the school used his tuition payments to support inaccessible technology.

The court rejected Shandrow’s claims on the basis that he lacked standing to sue. He did not identify any school policy that would impact him in any way, the court reasoned. And he didn’t have standing just because he paid tuition that helped fund the Kindle DX pilot program, the court said.

Cite: National Federation of the Blind v. Arizona Board of Regents.

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