CHARLESTON – A company sued in a case involving alleged disability discrimination has petitioned to remove the lawsuit from city to federal court.
Horizon Youth Services LC filed the motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia at Charleston on March 3.
In the original complaint filed in February in Kanawha Circuit Court, Michelle Douglas, a career counselor for Horizon from Jan. 6 to Aug. 27, 2014, accused it of failing to make successful accommodations for her blindness in the workplace. Douglas says she resigned after being disciplined for her inability to file paperwork and access the computer system via a screen reader, tasks for which she requested special accommodations and was initially promised help to accomplish.
Horizons Youth says the case falls under federal jurisdiction because the amount of damages is likely to top $75,000 and it is not a citizen of West Virginia.
Horizons is represented by attorneys John J. Polak and Paul L. Frampton Jr. of Atkinson & Polak PLLC in Charleston and by Kenneth S. Handmaker of Middleton Reutlinger in Louisville, Kentucky. Douglas is represented by Mark A. Toor of Charleston.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia at Charleston Case number 2:16-cv-02051