On October 15, 2013, the New York Court of Appeals (New York State’s highest court) in Romanell v. Intesa Sanpaolo, S.p.A. http://www.nycourts.
Under the NYC law, an employer has the burden of establishing that the employee could not, with reasonable accommodation, satisfy the essentials requisites of the job. The Court concluded that while the Plaintiff told his employer about his disability, his employer failed to establish that he could not perform his essential job functions with an accommodation. Having failed to do so, the Court rejected the employer’s effort to dismiss the case. The Court all noted that “we have held that the provisions of the City HRL should be construed broadly in favor of discrimination plaintiffs, to the extent that such a construction is reasonably possible.”