Employers considering reassigning an employee under the ADA may not rely on unpaid leave when suitable work is available, a federal appeals court ruled. The Fourth Circuit revived an ADA failure-to-accommodate claim against an employer that kept an employee on unpaid leave even though he had been cleared for less demanding work after he could no longer perform his physically demanding job. The court held that when an employee requests reassignment, an employer should consider whether the employee can perform the essential functions of the job sought, not the job previously held.
The decision reinforces the acceptability of unpaid leave when it gives an employee time to recover and return to the same job. However, when an employee can no longer perform the current job, an employer should identify vacant positions for which the employee may qualify and use the interactive process to evaluate the employee’s ability to perform the essential functions of those jobs.
Click here to read more from the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association. CWC’s Navigating the Reasonable Accommodation Process course walks through these steps.