Labor & Employment Law

ADA accommodation case taken off Supreme Court docket

Huber v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. has been settled by the parties, and removed from the list of cases that the Supreme Court will decide this year.

It raised an interesting issue: Whether the ADA requires an employer to reassign a disabled employee to a vacant position for which she is qualified, or merely permits the employee to apply and compete with other applicants for the vacant position.

Here is how the issue was stated in Huber's petition for certiorari:

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12111 et seq. (ADA), requires employers to "mak[e] reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability." 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). The statute expressly lists "reassignment to a vacant position" as a "reasonable accommodation." Id. § 12111(9)(B). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued regulations implementing that definition, 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(2)(ii), and it has interpreted those regulations to provide that "[t]he employee does not need to be the best qualified individual for the position in order to obtain it as a reassignment." The questions presented are:

1. If a disability prevents an employee from performing the essential functions of his or her current position, does the ADA require:

(a) that the employer reassign the employee to a vacant, equivalent position for which he or she is qualified, as the Tenth and District of Columbia Circuits have held; or

(b) that the employer merely permit the employee to apply and compete with other applicants for the vacant, equivalent position for which he or she is qualified, as the Seventh and Eighth Circuits have held?

The facts:

Pam Huber had worked as an order-filler until she became disabled. She sought, as a reasonable accommodation, reassignment to a router position which was vacant and for which she was qualified. The employer did not automatically reassign her to the router position, but required her to apply and compete with other applicants. The employer filled the router position with a non-disabled person who was the most qualified applicant, and placed Huber in a less desirable janitorial position.

Huber sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); the trial court granted summary judgment for Huber; the 8th Circuit reversed; the US Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the 8th Circuit judgment. Now the case has been dismissed.

Huber's position was that the employer should have automatically reassigned her to the router position without requiring her to compete with other applicants. The employer's position was that it has a nondiscriminatory policy of hiring the most qualified applicant, and that giving the router position to the most qualified applicant does not violate the ADA.

Full post as published by Ross' Employment Law Blog on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).