Mar 26 2025
Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda.
Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh. What are we gonna talk about today?
Goodbaum: I want to talk about an employee who asks for a reasonable accommodation and is denied. They go to their employer, and they say, “Hey, I have a disability. Here’s the reasonable accommodation I need in order to allow me to do the essential functions of my job.” The employer says, “Yeah, we’ve looked at this, and we are not giving you that reasonable accommodation. Sorry.” What should that employee do?
DeMatteis: This is a good question, Josh. We face this one all the time. Let’s make sure that you’ve gone about this request for an accommodation the right way.
Number one: Your employer needs to be on notice of your disability. So, let’s make sure we’ve done that. Let’s make sure we’ve done that in writing.
Number two: This request for a reasonable accommodation, once again, let’s make sure it’s in writing. Is it reasonable? Is it something that you think your employer could do? Is it limited in time? In other words, this is not a reasonable accommodation that is from now for the next 5 years. Maybe it’s now for the next 6 months or the next 3 weeks or the next 9 months. Let’s keep it as close as we possibly can temporally from the request.
Remember, we can always renew these reasonable accommodation requests, but we don’t want it to be so far out that your employer can automatically say, “Well, hey, we can’t possibly today commit to keeping this reasonable accommodation in place for several years.” So, make sure that we’re really paying attention to that word “reasonable” in our request.
Number three: Has your employer asked you any follow-up questions to your original request for a reasonable accommodation? Maybe they need further medical support. Maybe they want to ask you whether or not we can tweak the reasonable accommodation in some way to meet the needs of the organization.
Of course, you want to be responsive to any questions that they ask you in follow-up. That, of course, is what we’ve talked about many times before – the “interactive dialogue” – and it’s just that: it’s interactive. It’s a give-and-take. It should be a conversation between you and your employer to see whether or not this reasonable accommodation can, in fact, be met.
If you’ve done all of that, and your employer is simply saying, “No, we can’t do this,” and not providing you with a reason why, not allowing you to come back to them with further information that they then consider, and simply saying, “Sorry, that can’t be done,” really, Josh, the only next step that you have is to talk with an employment lawyer and see whether or not there’s something else that can be done to have your employer reconsider this, to really engage in an interactive dialogue with you that’s meaningful to see if this reasonable accommodation can be done.
Remember that this is a two-way street, so let’s make sure that you and your employer are working together. If you’re the only one that’s working on this, it’s not really an interactive dialogue, and it’s time to get some outside help.
Goodbaum: Great information, Amanda, and great advice. Thank you so much. Thank you all for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
Posted by Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. in Commentary
Tagged Amanda DeMatteis, Joshua Goodbaum
