Opinion ID: 757637
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Light-Duty Work

Text: 39 It is Excel's policy, explain the plaintiffs, initially to place injured workers in other jobs--other production jobs, nonproduction jobs or light-duty jobs--that they can perform while they are recuperating from their injuries. However, when Excel determines that an injured employee's medical restrictions are permanent, the company removes him from his recuperation period job and places him on medical layoff. The plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in concluding that all such jobs were temporary and therefore did not need to be considered when reasonably accommodating the disabled employees. According to the plaintiffs, the record evidence indicates that Excel removed permanently restricted employees from regular, permanent production and nonproduction jobs solely because Excel had determined that the employees were disabled and could not perform their pre-injury production jobs. In this regard, the plaintiffs charge that the company violated the ADA in two ways: First, it took regular, permanent jobs in the plant, relabeled them as light-duty (and, implicitly, as temporary) and then excluded permanently handicapped employees from those jobs. Second, Excel removed qualified workers from regular, permanent plant jobs which they were performing successfully solely because they were not capable of doing their pre-injury jobs. The plaintiffs contend that the relevant inquiry is not whether a disabled employee was qualified for the job he held prior to the injury but rather whether he is qualified to do the job he currently holds. 40 Excel responds that the ADA does not require an employer to establish light-duty assignments and certainly does not compel an employer to make such assignments permanent. Excel contends that it cannot be deemed to have violated the ADA by reserving light-duty positions for the specific purpose of accommodating the employees' temporary medical restrictions and then by discontinuing those assignments after the class members' medical restrictions changed. The company urges us to uphold the district court's conclusion that Excel's two-pronged policy of setting aside certain jobs for injured employees, to help them in their transition back into mainstream jobs, and then of removing the employees from those temporary light-duty positions once they were determined to be permanently restricted did not violate the ADA. 41 Our case law and the EEOC's interpretation of the ADA have approved of an employer's offer of light-duty assignments as a reasonable accommodation for injured workers. See, e.g., Dalton, 141 F.3d at 680; EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Workers' Compensation and the ADA, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) at 405:7401 (1996) (An employer may recognize a special obligation arising out of the employment relationship to create a light duty position for an employee when s/he has been injured while performing work for the employer and, as a consequence, is unable to perform his/her regular job duties.). The EEOC's Technical Assistance Manual provides specific guidance on light-duty jobs: 42 [I]f an employer already has a vacant light duty position for which an injured worker is qualified, it might be a reasonable accommodation to reassign the worker to that position. If the position was created as a temporary job, a reassignment to that position need only be for a temporary period. 43 When an employer places an injured worker in a temporary light duty position, that worker is otherwise qualified for that position for the term of that position; a worker's qualifications must be gauged in relation to the position occupied, not in relation to the job held prior to the injury. It may be necessary to provide additional reasonable accommodation to enable an injured worker in a light duty position to perform the essential functions of that position. 44 EEOC: Technical Assistance on Title I of ADA, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) § 9.4 at 405:7057-58 (1992). In Dalton, we reviewed a light-duty program set up for employees recuperating from recent injuries whose disabilities were temporary. The employees could have the light-duty jobs for 90 days only; the positions then were available for other injured workers. Dalton considered an allegation much like the one before us today: the complaint of those employees who had been removed from light-duty jobs, when they were well qualified to continue performing their temporary jobs, in order to allow other injured workers to fill the jobs. In Dalton, we found that the temporary and limited nature of the light-duty program did not violate the ADA. 45 The ADA does not compel an employer to reduce the number of bona fide temporary jobs it has set aside ... and to convert them to permanent positions for its disabled employees. The ADA does require that [the employer] make its light-duty program available to disabled employees who are recuperating from temporary restrictions and are otherwise qualified to participate. See C.F.R. Pt. 1630, App. § 1630.9. But nothing here indicates that [the employer] failed to do that, and it was entitled to reserve a reasonable number of positions for this special purpose. To hold otherwise would be to require [the employer] to create new full-time positions to accommodate its disabled employees, a course of action not required under the ADA. 46 Id. at 680; see also EEOC Enforcement Guidance, 8 FEP Manual (BNA) at 405:7402 (An employer is free to determine that a light duty position will be temporary rather than permanent.). As we suggested in Dalton, we believe that it would frustrate the ADA for permanently impaired employees to fill temporary light-duty assignments when those jobs have been set aside specifically for recuperating employees. In the case before us, employees were given light-duty positions with no end-date, no specified period for holding the job; they remained in those jobs until a medical decision concerning the permanence of their disabilities was rendered. Although we believe that the temporary nature of a light-duty program should not be adjudged by the absoluteness of the time period in which an injured employee may participate, we note that Excel specifically created light-duty positions in the CBA but did not designate those jobs as temporary. 8 Excel's light-duty jobs were placed outside the normal bidding procedures; but it remains a question of fact whether the jobs were temporary. If the light-duty positions truly are temporary, Excel was not required to convert them into permanent ones for the permanently restricted employees. See Dalton, 141 F.3d at 680. However, if the job in which an injured employee was placed is in fact a vacant permanent job, production or nonproduction, and it is suitable for an employee with a disability, then the employee's assignment to that position must be treated as a reassignment to a permanent job for purposes of accommodation. See EEOC Enforcement Guidance, 8 FEP Manual at 405:7402 (In some cases, the only effective reasonable accommodation available for an individual with a disability may be similar or equivalent to a light-duty position. The employer would have to provide that reasonable accommodation unless the employer can demonstrate that doing so would impose an undue hardship.). 47 The plaintiffs claim that some of them were working such regular production jobs as trim thyroids, turn hogs, trim butts, tend skinner, front foot cutoff, ham boning and combo make-up. Others were given nonproduction work such as jobs in the purchasing department or the nurses' station. Presented with this evidence, we are persuaded that there is a genuine issue of triable fact as to whether Excel properly implemented its light-duty policy. An employer can take the least strenuous of its jobs, put them in a pool for temporary light-duty work, and use them so its employees can get back on their feet. We believe, however, that the evidence of record was insufficient to determine the extent to which Excel may have assigned injured employees to less strenuous work that was not formally classified temporary light-duty work. There is also a genuine issue as to whether the injured employees knew that the jobs in which they initially were placed were truly temporary or whether they could consider the jobs a reasonable accommodation for their impairments. 48