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Comment by shotta | Hacker News Reader

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.

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...

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.

> 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.

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