Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the Americans with Disabilities Act
24. Is it a reasonable accommodation to modify a workplace policy?
Yes. It is a reasonable accommodation to modify a workplace policy when necessitated by an individual's disability-related limitations,(71) absent undue hardship. But, reasonable accommodation only requires that the employer modify the policy for an employee who requires such action because of a disability; therefore, the employer may continue to apply the policy to all other employees.
Example: An employer has a policy prohibiting employees from eating or drinking at their workstations. An employee with insulin-dependent diabetes explains to her employer that she may occasionally take too much insulin and, in order to avoid going into insulin shock, she must immediately eat a candy bar or drink fruit juice. The employee requests permission to keep such food at her workstation and to eat or drink when her insulin level necessitates. The employer must modify its policy to grant this request, absent undue hardship. Similarly, an employer might have to modify a policy to allow an employee with a disability to bring in a small refrigerator, or to use the employer's refrigerator, to store medication that must be taken during working hours.
Granting an employee time off from work or an adjusted work schedule as a reasonable accommodation may involve modifying leave or attendance procedures or policies. For example, it would be a reasonable accommodation to modify a policy requiring employees to schedule vacation time in advance if an otherwise qualified individual with a disability needed to use accrued vacation time on an unscheduled basis because of disability- related medical problems, barring undue hardship.(72) Furthermore, an employer may be required to provide additional leave to an employee with a disability as a reasonable accommodation in spite of a "no-fault" leave policy, unless the provision of such leave would impose an undue hardship.(73)
In some instances, an employer's refusal to modify a workplace policy, such as a leave or attendance policy, could constitute disparate treatment as well as a failure to provide a reasonable accommodation. For example, an employer may have a policy requiring employees to notify supervisors before 9:00 a.m. if they are unable to report to work. If an employer would excuse an employee from complying with this policy because of emergency hospitalization due to a car accident, then the employer must do the same thing when the emergency hospitalization is due to a disability.(74)
71. 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B) (1994); 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(2)(ii) (1997). See US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, 535 U.S., 122 S. Ct. 1516, 1521 (2002).
72. See Dutton v. Johnson County Bd. of Comm'rs, 868 F. Supp. 1260, 1264-65, 3 AD Cas. (BNA) 1614, 1618 (D. Kan. 1994).
73. See 29 C.F.R. pt. 1630 app. § 1630.15(b), (c) (1997). See also Question 17, supra.
74. But cf. Miller v. Nat'l Casualty Co., 61 F.3d 627, 629-30, 4 AD Cas. (BNA) 1089, 1090 (8th Cir. 1995) (court refuses to find that employee's sister had requested reasonable accommodation despite the fact that the sister informed the employer that the employee was having a medical crisis necessitating emergency hospitalization).
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