We have a strict seniority system. Do we have to bump one of our workers to give another employee a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act? — Anonymous
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Generally not. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that employers will ordinarily not be required to violate their workplace seniority system to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In the 2002 case of U.S. Airways Inc. v. Barnett, the court held that the ADA’s reasonable accommodation provision usually does not require a disabled employee to be reassigned to a position that another employee is entitled to hold under the employer’s established seniority system.
The court reasoned that the typical seniority system provides important employee benefits by creating and fulfilling employee expectations of fair, uniform treatment. Therefore, undermining a seniority system would chip away at the sense of fairness in the workplace.
However, under certain circumstances, the court advised that seniority rules may be broken where bending seniority rules “won’t make a difference,” or if the employee presents evidence of special circumstances that make a seniority rule exception reasonable. For example, if the employer had previously made exceptions to the seniority policy, the requested accommodation would likely not make a difference.
— CELA Editors