Sup Ct To Hear ADA “Reasonable Accommodation” Case
The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari from an Eighth Circuit decision and has agreed to address whether an employer violates its duty, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee when, instead of reassigning the employee to a vacant, equivalent position, it merely allows the employee to compete for that position.
In the decision below,
addressing an issue of apparent first impression for the court, the Eighth
Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer did not violate its duty of
reasonable accommodation when it required an employee with a disability to enter
a pool of applicants for a vacant router position, and ultimately assigned a
more qualified applicant to the vacant position and the employee to a
maintenance associate position with less pay than her previous position. The ADA
did not require the employer to turn away a superior applicant for the router
position in order to give the position to the employee in question. Even though
the employee was able to perform the job duties of the vacant router position,
the employer had a non-discriminatory policy of hiring the best applicant for
available positions, the Court of Appeals reasoned. The maintenance position may
not have been a perfect substitute job, or the employee's most preferred
alternative job, but an employer is not required to provide a disabled employee
with an accommodation that is ideal from the employee's perspective, only an
accommodation that is reasonable, the court explained.
Huber v. Wal-Mart
Stores, Inc.