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> If you want to completely avoid dogs, then don't take a job that involves having to interact with dogs.

Following the above, wouldn't this be any job that requires interacting with other people? So basically any job?

Realistically seeing-eye dogs are not that common and plenty of jobs allow you to distance yourself from any potential dogs you might run into.

There's not too many jobs where a dog might end up right behind you for extended periods of time in an enclosed space.

I can't speak for all jobs, but working as a software developer I have never been forced to interact with a dog

If you ever go to an office, you're in the same boat. ADA support dogs are allowed in offices as well.

The ADA applies to workers too. A dog allergy is a disability.

https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

> Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.

If the person has a dog allergy, Uber should make the appropriate accommodations (possibly by allowing them to assign another driver to the fare) - however, they cannot refuse the fare.

This. It would be absurdly easy for Uber to allow riders to specify "I have a service animal" and drivers to specify "I have a dog allergy" (probably with a requirement to provide a doctor's note to avoid abuse). You simply don't pair those riders with those drivers.

The ADA doesn't require passengers to state that they have a service animal. Additionally, having that would likely open up Uber to additional liability for discrimination cases of people turning down rides (or marking that they have a dog allergy when they don't) and causing the rate or availability to be different for someone who has a situation that is covered by the ADA.

The availability difference is a concern. I wasn't picturing the drivers being made aware of the service animal ahead of time, which would eliminate discrimination concerns, assuming you could actually enforce that you have to have a real allergy.

How does this change anything?

If someone has a problem with dogs, or anything else, then they are not qualified to perform a job that requires interacting with dogs, or whatever their particular disability involves.

They aren't being denied a right to work out of discrimination or prejudice. They simply can't do that job.

Here's the difference between that and prejudicial discrimination:

If someone does have either an allergy or tramatic stress issue with dogs, or whatever else, but for some reason they really want to do this particular job anyway, they still can. IF they want to deal with their problem theirself somehow, with allergy meds or meditation or plain iron will or whatever, as long as they can and do the job properly, no one will prevent them.

Discrimination & prejudice is I don't care how good you might be at the job, you still aren't allowed to do it (or are significantly and artificially disadvantaged) simply because you're female or black etc.

The drivers just don't like that the dogs mess up their cars and the smell displeases the next customer and affects their rating and tips.

The answer to that is tough shit. Don't take a job serving the public if you only like some people and not others.

This is the general store mysteriously always being out of flour or beans for the black family. Your freedom not to interact with people you don't like and who aren't violent or otherwise dangerous, comes only in the form that you are free not to operate or work for a business that serves the public. Go be a comic book artist or accountant or something where you don't have to let any filthy dogs into your house as part of your job.

>If someone has a problem with dogs, or anything else, then they are not qualified to perform a job that requires interacting with dogs, or whatever their particular disability involves.

An allergic reaction is not just a "problem with dogs." An allergy to dog hair is no more or less important than any other disability. The law requires reasonable attempts to accommodate the individual with a service animal, and the individual with an allergy. In the case of Uber or Lyft, it seems relatively trivial (to me) to classify drivers with allergies, riders with guide dogs, and to prevent those two groups from connecting for a ride.

The real problem here is that Uber/Lyft don't want to take any action that would further blur the line between employee and contractor.

> Don't take a job serving the public if you only like some people and not others.

Seems like this logic doesn't apply to payment processors, web hosts, and anyone else who doesn't want to deal with free speech that they find offensive. Bake the cake, right?

The anti-discrimination logic applies very specifically to protected classes, and only protected classes. So yes indeed bake that cake.

What a mistake this all was.

Payment processors, webhosts, etc (I assume you're alluding a lot of the alt-right sights being removed from those platforms) have in practice refused to serve customers that expose them to legal culpability. There's a clear difference.

Yes. Bake the cake. The only legal culpability is to NOT do so.

What legal culpability do they have accepting payments for organizations that run websites that allow people to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to free speech?

A lot of platforms have arbitrary requirements of who they'll serve or won't serve. Even those with fixed rules can enforce against anyone, and then just ignore your support tickets when you try to appeal.

I guess the difference in this case is targeting someone due to a disability/protected characteristic, compared to some other reason. One fair thing might be Uber subsidising rides of disabled people with guide dogs (in the sense that it pays drivers a bit more to account for cleanup costs etc). I dunno if they can be expected to do this, but such costs probably won't show up on their bottom line and the PR of doing that alone would probably make up for any costs.

It has been ruled that fear of dogs or allergies to dogs is not sufficient reason to deny service to someone with a service dog.

https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

I think a deathly allergy would qualify as a 'legitimate safety requirement'. There are also situations in which the ADA considers an allergy itself to be a disability, though the given examples are usually around food allergies.

I don't think a deadly allergy to dogs exists as a condition on its own, you would probably also have a whole lot of terrible respiratory issues when exposed to a lot of other allergens. Someone with a deadly allergy to dogs will probably already require accommodations on the job that shield them from close interaction with people on its entirety.

Such a person would not be able to drive a taxi/uber regardless of accommodations. I used to have a severe cat allergy that resulted in an asthma attack when exposed to, for instance, a colleague covered in cat hair. Their cat was in another city at the time.

I don't see that language anywhere except for the case of miniature horses?

This is specifically addressed in updated guidance from 2010.

"Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility."

How on earth does this apply to cars?

Put up a divider. Or update the app's UX: "[ ] I'm blind and have a service dog."

"A customer is not required to indicate that he or she will be traveling with a service animal when calling to request a ride."

https://www.thetransportationalliance.org/news/adanotice.pdf

Considering how little Uber drivers makes per drive (and they are independent contractors and not workers in most places) a simple divider would probably come close to the "unreasonable cost" in the ADA. It is not that I don't empathize with disabled people but ADA as it seems to be written and all the "support animals" these days would probably drive many small business to bankrupcy.

In Sweden "our ADA" only applies to lead-dogs and they have a special "blanket" and most people that want to bring their dogs into restaurants and hotels don't have licensed dogs. But still, if all the "dog rooms" are taken then the deep cleaning required is a pretty big cost to bear and I have seen customers turn in the door when there was a dog in the restaurant.

So it is not a simple issue and I sympathize with the small independent contractors. Uber, not so much.

> and all the "support animals" these days would probably drive many small business to bankrupcy.

Those are not covered by the ADA: https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/service_animal_qa.html

>Q3. Are emotional support, therapy, comfort, or companion animals considered service animals under the ADA?

> A. No. These terms are used to describe animals that provide comfort just by being with a person. Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. However, some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places. You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.

They aren't covered here in Sweden either and there are apparently less then a 1000 actual guide dogs that are covered. But that does not stop people from trying to bring their support dogs in. At least we have official "guide dog blankets" and the training facilities hands out identification cards so the real ones are easy to spot.

My experience (of 1) is also that guide dog owners are mostly reasonable, willing to come to a compromise that works for everyone and have very well behaved dogs. The woman I helped was more then happy to take a window table right next to the terrace door and let her dog stay right outside the window.

"Support dog"-owners (the handful I've met) are in my experience pretty unreasonable and unpleasant to deal with, have a "customer is always right"-attitude and their dogs are pretty universally badly behaved. I've had a group of seven try to argue that one guy in a wheelchair needed his support dog inside the restaurant while the dog was pulling on his leech and jumping on me.

Other dog owners i Sweden are also pretty nice to deal with. They usually keep their dog tied outside, in the car (with the backdoor open if they have crates) or ask if they can bring their dog through the restaurant to the terrace and eat outside (even if it is cold).

Wouldn’t someone with a severe allergy to dogs also be covered under ADA?

If a company has fewer than 15 employees, it's exempt from the ADA's requirements.

If it has 15 employees or more, then the law assumes that it's reasonable for the company to provide service (e.g. by reassigning a non-allergic employee to work with a customer who has a service dog) except where it would demonstrably create an undue hardship.

If that's true then the narrative above about how "people with dog allergies shouldn't be allowed to drive for Uber" is crap. Service dogs are much rarer than Uber drivers without allergies. There's no reason Uber can't accommodate both customers with service animals and drivers with legitimate reasons to avoid certain service animals.

Some drivers may lie, but if you require even a simple doctor's note I think that would deter a lot of people from bothering, given the rarity of encountering a service dog request.

Then it is not clear to me why a driver that uses the Uber app to find passengers, who is not an Uber employee, would not be allowed to refuse a service animal.

> Then it is not clear to me why a driver that uses the Uber app to find passengers, who is not an Uber employee, would not be allowed to refuse a service animal.

Uber did try what you said as a defense, and they lost, so it seem courts think that because Uber is a huge company, with much more than 15 people, it's on them to find a way to be compliant with ADA.

Weather or not drivers are subcontractors or not doesn't even come to play.

Because lets face it. If they didn't thats such a huge hole, that in a lot of cases corporations would be able to structure themselves in a way that they could avoid that.

The question is if this court considers Uber responsible because the driver is an employee, then how is the driver not an employee for all other purposes? Other courts have maintained the drivers are not employees. And usually, courts stay consistent unless over ruled by superior courts.

Uber is company with over 15 employees. As such it must follow the law. So in the end it has to find some driver who is willing to transport customer. But on other hand all drivers as independent contractors can refuse. It's catch-22. But court can reasonably expect Uber being able to pay enough for someone to take the job...

> Wouldn’t someone with a severe allergy to dogs also be covered under ADA?

Sure, which clearly matters of Uber drivers are employees, but less so if they are independent service providers.

> I've had traumatic experiences with dogs and being near one sends me into panic.

I can only speak for myself, but I used to be scared of most dogs except guide dogs. Guide dogs always seemed to have a calming effect on me (for some reason).