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If you want to see a really impressive accommodation process, read Goosen v. Minnesota Department of Transportation, a case decided by the Eighth Circuit.
Goosen was a heavy equipment field mechanic who suffered a pretty serious hand and arm injury that led to four surgeries and more than a year of light duty and medical leave. When he sought to return to work, he was cleared to work full-time, but could not (according to his doctor) outstretch his arms for more than three hours a day, reach overhead for more than six hours a day, or climb in-and-out of trucks more than seven hours per day.
In response to his request to return to work with the listed restrictions, the MDOT put together a 14-person “Work Analysis Team” comprised of senior HR managers, an ADA coordinator, representatives from the safety and workers’ compensation program, two of Goosen’s supervisors and Goosen’s vocational rehab counselor. The team met nine times over the course of a month to identify the essential functions of Goosen’s job and determine if MDOT could reasonably accommodate his restrictions. The team compiled a spreadsheet listing the essential functions of the job and even broke those functions down into itemized tasks. For each task, the team assessed the accommodation options and met with Goosen (after providing him an initial report) to get his feedback. The team even decided to look at the possibility of a transfer to a different position (heavy equipment mechanic position). Ultimately, it decided it could not accommodate Goosen’s restrictions, and Goosen’s employment was terminated after his FMLA leave ended.
Goosen filed suit under The Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming he could have performed the essential functions of his old job and the potential new job, and that MDOT erred in defining the essential functions of the jobs. He did not argue that he could perform the essential functions of the heavy equipment field mechanic as MDOT’s team defined them; rather, he disputed the team’s “determinations of the required frequency and duration of three tasks required to repair and maintain heavy equipment.”
The District Court and the Eighth Court of Appeals both disagreed and found in favor of MDOT. First, the Eighth Circuit’s opinion listed the factors used to determine whether job duties in fact are essential:
- The employer’s judgment as to which functions are essential;
- The written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job;
- The amount of time spent on the job performing the function;
- The consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function; and
- The current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs.
The Eighth Circuit also noted a job function “may be essential if the reason the position exists is to perform that function” and that “a task may be an essential function even if the employee performs it for only a few minutes each week, and even if other employees are available to perform the task for the disabled employee.”
Because of the MDOT team’s detailed efforts, the Eighth Circuit held the it “accurately and reasonably” defined the essential functions of the job. MDOT’s team “defined the tasks required to perform the essential functions, basing its conclusions on the preemployment job description, the experience and insight of Goosen’s supervisors, the amount of time mechanics spent accomplishing their various job responsibilities, and the consequences of Goosen’s inability to perform the essential functions of his position.” The team also “relied on calculations provided by Goosen to determine how much time heavy equipment field mechanics engaged in each task” and insight from Goosen’s supervisors into the essential functions of the job and the tasks required to complete each function. Because the MDOT team “accurately and reasonably” determined the essential job functions, and because Goosen’s restrictions would not allow him to meet those core job functions, MDOT met its obligations under the ADA.
As to Goosen’s claim that he should have been reassigned to a different type of heavy equipment mechanic job, he failed to make a showing that he “would be able to perform the essential functions of that position with or without reasonable accommodations.” Goosen produced no evidence the essential functions were different than those of his original mechanic job, and in fact the only real difference between the jobs was the location where the work would be performed. Further, the MDOT team determined that when Goosen “met the limit of his restrictions, other employees would have to step in and assume his work.” That was not a reasonable accommodation in the Eighth Circuit’s opinion for a variety of reasons — employers “are not required to reallocate the essential functions of a job” and are not expected to provide “an accommodation that would cause other employees to work harder, longer, or be deprived of opportunities,” and hiring a new employee to help “generally” is not a reasonable accommodation.
The MDOT team took a really deep dive into the accommodation process to determine just what the essential functions of the job at issue were and whether Goosen’s restrictions could be reasonably accommodated. While I don’t think businesses have to go to the lengths MDOT took (such as appointing a 14-member committee), I do think this case is a great example of how the accommodation process should be handled. Don’t just guess or rely blindly on a job description – get into the weeds and figure out just what the job duties and tasks look like on a day-to-day basis and understand what restrictions an employee might have before deciding whether a reasonable accommodation is possible.