In California. federal judge says Ventura County discriminated when it refused to hire qualified deaf woman

From The Ventura County Star:

A federal judge in Los Angeles approved a consent decree July 16 resolving a lawsuit alleging Ventura County violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it refused to hire a qualified job applicant because she was deaf.

The woman, Lee Ann Unchangco, was a child social worker in Los Angeles for more than eight years and excelled at it before she applied for the same job with Ventura County in 2005.

As part of the consent decree, Ventura County agreed to pay $45,000 in damages to Unchangco and train supervisory personnel involved in hiring and promotion decisions to ensure equal employment opportunities, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Assistant County Counsel Matthew Smith, however, said the county did not admit any wrongdoing.

“The county, of course, makes every effort to comply with the disability law and to provide reasonable accommodation, and in this case there was just a disagreement with our ability to do that,” Smith said. “The consent decree was deemed to be the best way for both parties to resolve it and go their own way.”

U.S. Assistant Attorney Thomas E. Perez said in the release that the law prohibits employers from making hiring decisions based on unfounded assumptions about how a deaf employee will perform the job or about the costs involved in providing reasonable accommodations.

The federal lawsuit, filed last year, claimed the county, during an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, acknowledged it did not hire her because she was deaf.

The EEOC conducted the investigation after Unchangco filed a discrimination complaint.

The suit sought an unspecified amount of damages, an order requiring the county to hire her, back pay with interest and benefits, and other measures to “overcome the effects of the discrimination.”

County officials, however, said they tried to find reasonable accommodations for the applicant before concluding it could not be done.