Let me set the scene for you.
A teacher who had just taken leave under the Family Medical Leave Act during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to undergo heart and kidney transplant surgeries learns that the school where he teaches is requiring in-school teaching. Because he is immunocompromised, his doctors recommend working remotely. So, the teacher requests to work from home. However, the school requires that students and teachers come to school and proposes three alternatives:
- Teach remotely from his classroom using virtual learning technology while his students observe from a nearby computer lab with an educational assistant present.
- The same virtual instruction option, except instruct from the gymnasium, which had a private restroom and an isolated entrance.
- Request additional leave.
The teacher rejects all three options, preferring his previously requested work-from-home proposal instead. He thus did not return to the school building. He is eventually suspended and never returns to work.
Has the school violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide a reasonable accommodation to the teacher?
According to the lower court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, although there may not be much functional difference between the physical location of a remote teacher, the school did not violate the ADA.
Regarding accommodations, the law charges both the employer and the employee to engage in good faith and consider all reasonable possibilities. Often, the side that withdraws from the process prematurely, i.e., the party responsible for the breakdown of this interactive process, will wind up the loser in court. Additionally, an employer proposing multiple accommodations generally demonstrates a willingness to engage in the interactive process, especially when it invites input from the employee on its proposals.
On the other hand, an employee will be at fault for the breakdown in the interactive process if he rejects multiple proposed accommodations in favor of one the employer has already rejected. It’s even worse when, as here, the employee fails to follow the employer’s protocol for requesting sick leave and reporting absences even after the employer’s prompting.
The teacher argued fervently that the potential accommodations discussed confirmed that in-person, on-site instruction was not essential to his job, and the school’s alternative accommodations were not reasonable. However, the reasonableness of an employee’s proposed accommodation alone is not dispositive. Indeed, where there is more than one reasonable accommodation, the choice of accommodation is the employer’s. The Sixth Circuit accepted that the teacher’s proposal was reasonable but did not absolve him from continuing the interactive process.
Eventually, however, the teacher “chose silence over working with [the school] to find a meaningful solution that would reconcile his health-related limitations with the [school’s] in-person or on-site requirements.” Since the teacher withdrew from the interactive process, he was responsible for the breakdown in the interactive process and, thus, forfeited his ADA rights.