An appeals court won’t rehear a case in which it ruled that United Airlines was not required to reassign a worker with a disability because that accommodation would have violated its collective bargaining agreement’s seniority policy. The court also held that the lower court properly dismissed the case because the employee failed to identify any vacant positions for which he was qualified.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached those conclusions in Dunderdale v. United Airlines, Inc., No. 14-2911 (Dec. 3, 2015), and denied the plaintiff’s en banc petition Jan. 21.
The ruling drew criticism from several sources. In a dissent, 7th Circuit Judge Kenneth Francis Ripple said that an exception to the policy may have been reasonable and that a jury should decide whether United caused a breakdown in the ADA’s interactive process when it failed to consider reassignment as an accommodation.
And Jon Hyman, a partner at Meyers, Roman, Friedberg and Lewis and the ADA Compliance Guide’s contributing editor, said that he expects the plaintiff to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case because it deviates from federal guidance. “I do not believe the [U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] would conclude that an employee must identify a vacant position for which the employee is qualified, but that the employer must consider all such vacant positions part of the interactive process once the employee raises transfer as a potential reasonable accommodation,” Hyman said.
For the full story and more information on reassignment under the ADA, see United Airlines’ Seniority Policy Barring Job Switch Trumps ADA, 7th Circuit Rules.