Allowing an employee to sit for half of her shift, thereby eliminating several job duties, is “per se” unreasonable, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia has found.
The case, EEOC v. Eckerd Corp. (d/b/a Rite Aid) (No. 1:10-CV-2816-JEC (N.D. Ga., July 9, 2012)), involved Fern Strickland, a drugstore cashier with osteoarthritis in both of her knees.
Strickland requested that instead of requiring her to clean and stock shelves when she was not busy at the register, the employer allow her to “sit at least 30 minutes per hour worked throughout the work day.” The employer determined that it could not provide Strickland with the requested accommodation and fired her.She sued but the court agreed with the employer, finding that there was no accommodation that would allow Strickland to perform the essential functions of a cashier. Therefore, she was not a “qualified individual” — a prerequisite to bringing an ADA claim.
“[T]he sitting accommodation would simply eliminate, rather than enable Strickland to perform, many of the essential functions of the cashier job. It is therefore per se unreasonable,” the court concluded.
Get the full story at http://hr.complianceexpert.com/news/1.43833.