Tenth Circuit holds employer need not, under ADA, accommodate challenges that an employee’s disability imposes “outside the workplace unrelated to an essential function or a privilege of employment”

The Tenth Circuit recently decided a case involving an employee who required a flexible work schedule to do her job. She suffered from a disability related to her vision. She lived 60 miles from the workplace and relied on family and friends for rides to and from work. Her ability to make it to work on time proved a challenge. The company attempted to allow her to work a flexible work schedule, but that also proved unsuccessful, when her actual schedule became “erratic,” which “contributed to low patient satisfaction scores,” “less than stellar” performance evaluations. She sked the company to continue allowing her the flexible work schedule or even to work remotely full time. The company declined.

The Tenth Circuit held that her request to work remotely or on a flexible work schedule would, if granted, have accommodated “her transportation barrier (which was) a problem she faces outside the workplace unrelated to an essential job function or a privileged of employment.” The company could not control where she lived or when she was able to find rides with friends or family. She was in that sense like all employees, whether disabled or not, and nothing in the ADA imposes on an employer the obligation to grant accommodations that solve workers’ personal off-duty challenges. “(E)mployers have no obligation under the ADA to accommodate disabled employees for problems they face outside the workplace unrelated to the essential job functions of their positions or privileges of employment merely because they are disabled.”

Together with another recent Tenth Circuit case, the decision suggests how the courts may approach litigation that may arise as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the workplace.

Source: Unrein v. PHC-Fort Morgan, Inc., — F.3d — (10th Cir. 4/8/2021).