Takeaway: In evaluating whether an employee can perform essential job functions and so is qualified for the job for purposes of the ADA, a court will consider a number of factors, no one of which is determinative.

Because a correctional officer with a back injury could not respond to inmate violence in emergencies, he could not perform an essential function of a lieutenant position, a federal appeals court ruled. Therefore, the court said, the sheriff's department did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing to consider the officer for promotion to the lieutenant job.

In his third year as a correctional officer for the sheriff's department, the officer had a back injury. He returned to work under medical restrictions that required him to "avoid situations in which there is a significant chance of violence or conflict." After he was promoted to sergeant, the sheriff's office agreed to accommodate this medical restriction by allowing him to work in the classification unit, where the possibility of violence or physical conflict was relatively remote.

But when the officer sought a promotion to lieutenant, he was told that the sheriff could not accommodate him in that position. Correctional lieutenants had to be able to manage and defuse regular, violent situations involving inmates. Because the officer's medical restrictions would prevent him from performing this essential function, the sheriff's department said, he would remain a sergeant. The...

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