Tag Archive for: honest belief doctrine

Tenth Circuit restates summary judgment test with extensive discussion of multiple ADA and general employment law doctrines

The Tenth Circuit restated the test for granting summary judgment in favor of employers, and in doing so extensively discussed multiple doctrines frequently raised in such motions, including the honest belief doctrine, the adequacy of an employer’s investigation and the reasonableness of requested accommodations. With the regard to the last doctrine, the court noted that, as a matter of law, when workers advise their employers of a disability and request an accommodation after they have engaged in workplace misconduct, it is not a reasonable accommodation to ask that such misconduct be excused due to their disability. The court cited its 2004 precedent, Davila v. Quest Corp., Inc., for the proposition that “excusing workplace misconduct to provide a fresh start/second chance to an employee whose disability could be offered as an after-the-fact excuse is not a required accommodation under the ADA.” The Court concluded that “a denied request for retroactive leniency cannot support an accommodation claim.”

The case was DeWitt v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 845 F.3d 1299 (10th Cir. 2017).