Brewery Worker Fails to Revive Disability Accommodation Claims

A Michigan brewery defeated an employee’s appeal in a suit alleging the company failed to accommodate his back injury, the Sixth Circuit ruled, finding he didn’t exhaust his pre-suit remedies under federal law.

The decision looked to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in determining whether the former senior brewer at Bell’s Brewery Inc. met his administrative obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA incorporates Title VII’s pre-suit process, so Title VII and case law developed under it provide authority for deciding ADA claims, a unanimous panel said Thursday.

The issue was whether Jay Pemberton sufficiently ...