Seattle Disability Discrimination Lawyers

Most disability cases begin with a request. An employee asks for a modified schedule to attend treatment, a chair that does not aggravate a back injury, or a few weeks of leave after surgery. What follows is silence, a form that goes nowhere, or a conversation that ends with the suggestion that the job may no longer be a good fit. By the time a termination arrives, the employer has usually assembled a paper record explaining it as something other than a failure to accommodate.

We represent employees throughout Washington who have been denied reasonable accommodations, demoted or fired after disclosing a medical condition, or pushed out while on medical leave. Our disability discrimination attorneys represent workers in Seattle, Bellevue, Tacoma, Everett, Renton, and communities across King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties and throughout Washington. Washington’s disability protections are broader than the federal standard, and that difference is often decisive.

If your employer refused an accommodation, treated you differently after learning about your condition, or terminated you during or after medical leave, call Seattle Litigation Group at (206) 407-3300 for a free, confidential claim evaluation.

We accept disability discrimination cases on either a paid hourly fee basis or a contingency fee basis (meaning that there is no fee for our legal services unless you obtain compensation through a settlement or jury verdict).

What Counts as a Disability Under Washington Law?

More than most people expect, and in ways that still matter against the federal standard. RCW 49.60.040(7) defines disability as the presence of a sensory, mental, or physical impairment that is medically cognizable or diagnosable, that exists as a record or history, or that is perceived to exist whether or not it exists in fact. A disability exists whether it is temporary or permanent, common or uncommon, mitigated or unmitigated.

That breadth is deliberate. In 2006, in McClarty v. Totem Electric, the Washington Supreme Court adopted the narrower federal test, which asks whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity. The Legislature reversed that result the following year in Substitute Senate Bill 5340, writing the broader definition directly into the statute and making it retroactive to claims that arose before the decision. Outside the accommodation context, a Washington employee does not have to clear the substantially-limits hurdle at all.

Accommodation claims are the exception, and the difference matters. Under RCW 49.60.040(7)(d), an impairment must be known to the employer or shown through an interactive process to exist in fact, and it either it must have a substantially limiting effect on your ability to perform your job, to apply or be considered for a job, or to access equal benefits, privileges, or terms or conditions of employment; or you must have put the employer on notice of the impairment, with medical documentation establishing a reasonable likelihood that working without accommodation would aggravate it to that point. RCW 49.60.040(7)(e) adds that a limitation is not substantial if it has only a trivial effect.

Does My Employer Have to Accommodate Me?

If your employer employs eight or more people, yes if the accommodation is “reasonable.”

RCW 49.60.040(11) sets Washington’s coverage threshold at eight employees, against fifteen under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, which means a great many small and mid-sized Washington employers answer to the state statute rather than the federal one.

WAC 162-22-065 defines reasonable accommodation as measures that enable equal opportunity in the application process, proper performance of the particular job held or desired, and enjoyment of equal benefits, privileges, or terms and conditions of employment. The examples the regulation gives include adjustments in job duties, work schedules, or scope of work; changes in the job setting or conditions of work; and informing an employee of vacant positions and considering the employee for those for which the employee is qualified. WAC 162-22-100 separately addresses dog guides and service animals.

What is Considered an “Undue Hardship”?

An employer may decline an accommodation that would impose an undue hardship, but under WAC 162-22-075 the employer must prove it, weighed against factors that include the employer’s overall size and resources. It is a defense to be established, not a phrase that ends the conversation.

What If My Employer Simply Never Responded to My Request?

This is the most common pattern we see. An employee requests an accommodation, HR acknowledges it, and then nothing happens.

Washington law contemplates a genuine back-and-forth rather than a single yes or no. The interactive process appears in the WLAD itself, at RCW 49.60.040(7)(d), and Washington courts describe it as a flexible exchange in which each side seeks and shares information. The problem, however, is that the law does not contemplate that an employer will simply ignore the request. When this happens, liability can arise.

The duty runs both ways, however, and it is worth knowing that before you stop replying to HR. An employee is expected to explain the disability and the qualifications at issue, and to say whether an accommodation that was tried is actually working. A breakdown in the process is also not a separate claim on its own; it forms part of the failure-to-accommodate analysis. What the communication correspondence can do is to show which side was engaging and which side was not.

If your request was ignored, denied without explanation, or met with a sudden interest in your performance, call our disability discrimination lawyers at (206) 407-3300 before significant time passes.

Can I Be Fired If I Cannot Perform Part of My Job?

Sometimes, but far less often than employers suggest.

The question is whether you can perform the essential functions of the position with a reasonable accommodation. What counts as essential turns on several factors, including the time spent on the duty, the employer’s own judgment, and any written job description prepared before the position was advertised. A duty that occupies little of the actual work, or one the employer has quietly reassigned for years, is open to challenge.

Employers also cannot substitute their own judgment about what is good for you. Removing someone from a role out of concern for their health, without evidence and without discussion, is itself a form of disability discrimination. WAC 162-22-090 addresses the role of health care opinions in these assessments.

What Does Disability Harassment Look Like?

Harassment based on disability is unlawful on the same terms as harassment based on any other protected characteristic. It includes mockery of a condition, remarks about an employee being a liability or a burden, open hostility following an accommodation request, and the careless circulation of private medical information around a workplace. As with other harassment claims, the conduct must be severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment.

Where the harasser is an owner, manager, partner, or corporate officer, the conduct is imputed to the employer automatically. Otherwise, the employer is liable if it knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take reasonably prompt and adequate corrective action.

Is It Illegal to Retaliate Against Me for Requesting an Accommodation?

Yes.

RCW 49.60.210 prohibits retaliation against an employee who opposes a practice the statute forbids, or who files a complaint or participates in a proceeding. Complaining that an accommodation was denied is squarely protected. Punishing an employee for making the request in the first place is also unlawful, although under Washington law that conduct is usually framed as disability discrimination under RCW 49.60.180 rather than as retaliation. A retaliation claim stands on its own and can succeed even where the underlying discrimination claim does not.

Can I Take Medical Leave, and Can I Be Fired for Taking It?

Leave can be a reasonable accommodation and also carries its own statutory protections, though those protections are narrower than most employees assume. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides job-protected unpaid leave only to employees who meet its service, hours, and employer-size requirements.

Washington’s Paid Family and Medical Leave program under chapter 50A RCW provides partial wage replacement, and RCW 50A.35.010 provides job protection, but only for employees who began with that employer at least 180 days before the leave, and currently only at employers with 25 or more employees, a threshold that drops to 15 in 2027 and 8 in 2028.

Because the thresholds differ, an employer can satisfy one of these regimes and still fall short under another. Where leave protection does not reach, the accommodation duty under the WLAD often still does. Terminating someone for exhausting leave, without considering whether additional leave or another adjustment would have worked, is a frequent source of claims.

What Can I Recover, and What Does It Cost to Hire a Lawyer?

Employees who prevail under the WLAD may recover back pay, front pay where reinstatement is not workable, and compensatory damages for emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of personal dignity. Under RCW 49.60.030, prevailing plaintiffs are also entitled to recover their attorney’s fees and costs from the employer. The WLAD does not authorize punitive or exemplary damages.

Punitive damages are available only on a federal ADA claim, and they are limited. Under 42 U.S.C. Section 1981a, the statutory cap applies to the combined total of compensatory and punitive damages and varies with employer size, and punitive damages are not available at all against a government employer.

We represent clients either on a contingency fee basis or a paid hourly basis, depending upon the nature of the case.

How Long Do I Have to File a Disability Discrimination Claim in Washington?

Under the WLAD, a person generally will have three years from the date of the discriminatory act to file suit in Washington state court, a period that comes from Washington’s general personal injury statute, RCW 4.16.080. An administrative complaint with the Washington State Human Rights Commission must generally be filed within six months under RCW 49.60.230, and there is no disability exception to that six-month window. A federal ADA charge must be filed with the EEOC within 300 days, because Washington is a deferral state with its own enforcing agency.

Missing any of these deadlines can end an otherwise strong case.

Should I Quit If My Employer Will Not Accommodate My Disability?

When an employer ignores an accommodation request or repeatedly offers adjustments that do not address your limitations, leaving may feel like your only option. Before resigning, consider speaking with an attorney about the accommodations requested, your employer’s response, and whether other reasonable options remain available.

You may still pursue a disability discrimination or failure-to-accommodate claim after leaving your job. Under Washington law, you do not always have to prove that your employer effectively forced you to resign to recover lost wages caused by discrimination. However, the connection between the unlawful conduct and your financial losses matters, as do reasonable efforts to limit those losses.

Call our disability discrimination lawyers at (206) 407-3300 for a free case review. We can help you understand how staying or leaving could affect your rights and potential claims.

Schedule a Free Case Review with a Seattle Disability Discrimination Attorney

We represent employees, not employers. We know how these cases are built, where the interactive process breaks down, and how to show that a stated reason for a termination does not match what the record actually shows.

Call (206) 407-3300 or contact us online for a free case review by an experienced Seattle disability discrimination lawyer. We provide representation in disability discrimination cases on either a paid hourly fee basis or a contingency fee basis.