Opinion ID: 4375386
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disability accommodations requests

Text: In July 2011 Rogers requested an evaluation of her work station because -3- 7340 of “increased neck and hand pain, . . . with numbness, tingling and loss of strength in both hands.” An outside company conducted an ergonomic evaluation of Rogers’s work station and recommended modifications, some of which DHSS provided. Rogers was later in two car accidents, and her work station was again evaluated. One recommendation — now a point of contention — was an adjustable desk. In May 2012, after suffering an attack of Ménière disease which she said was triggered by stress, Rogers filed a request for disability accommodation related to the disease. DHSS did not grant the exact accommodations she requested, but it did provide her with an electronic tablet to help with the hearing impairment that is sometimes a symptom of the disease. Rogers also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), though she did not disclose it to her employer until early 2013. According to Rogers, she had no reason to tell DHSS about the condition until problems arose with the rearrangement of her office furniture. She testified that when she returned to work after the Presidents Day holiday in February 2013, she found her desk rearranged so that her back was to the door; she said that working in this position would trigger her PTSD. She and a coworker “reoriented” the desk to face the door. According to Rogers, Walker was displeased and told her the desk had to be turned around. Rogers went to Jamieson, Walker’s superior, and explained why she could not work with her back to the door; Rogers testified that Jamieson “allowed [her] to keep [her] desk properly oriented for [her] safety.” But Rogers asked Jamieson not to discuss her PTSD diagnosis with others at DHSS. Rogers had a disciplinary suspension in March 2013, and when she returned to work on April 1 her desk was again oriented with her back to the door. On the door was a notice forbidding the rearrangement of furniture; an email from Hunter explained that Rogers’s “furniture configuration had taken up almost the entire office and the second employee [sharing the office] was confined to one corner of the room. Now -4- 7340 the space is more appropriately split.” When Rogers complained to Jamieson, Jamieson told her to “work with [her] supervisors on th[is] type[] of request[].” Hunter and Walker learned of Rogers’s PTSD diagnosis at this point, and Rogers formally notified them of it on April 2, explaining that her “confidentiality [had] already been breached.” She was given paperwork to begin an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodations request, and DHSS offered to allow her to work in another office in the meantime. In an email to Walker, Rogers declined “the offer of an interim change in offices” because the desk in the other office was not adjustable but said she would move “if that is still your instruction.” She submitted the ADA paperwork for an accommodation related to her PTSD, and on April 12 DHSS agreed to grant her accommodation request.