Squire Patton Boggs Summer Associate Tess Chaffee summarizes a recent opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit holding that an adverse employment action is required for a failure to accommodate claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Most employers are familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in employment, and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to assist qualified individuals in performing their essential job functions absent undue hardship to the employer.
However, the federal circuit courts disagree about whether a failure to accommodate claim requires an adverse employment action – such as termination of employment, demotion, failure to promote, employee discipline, denial of wage increases, etc. – to be viable. For example, in a divided decision from 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (which hears appeals out of Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah) held in Exby-Stolley v. Board of County Commissioners that an adverse employment action is not a requisite element for a failure to accommodate claim under the ADA. In so holding, the Tenth Circuit explained that “the overwhelming majority” of circuits either do not require an employee to demonstrate that he or she suffered an adverse employment action before finding employers liable under the ADA for failing to accommodate the...
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