Opinion ID: 1332397
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Qualified Person With A Disability and Reasonable Accommodation

Text: The defendant argues that the verdict for the plaintiff should be overturned because as a matter of law, the plaintiff did not establish the first element in the Skaggs formulationthat the plaintiff was a qualified person with a disability. The defendant argues that if a disability temporarily but entirely precludes a person from performing the duties of a job (even if given on-the-job accommodation) and requires the person to take a temporary leave of absence from work because of the disabling condition, then the person is not able and competent to perform the services required[,] W.Va.Code, 5-11-9(1) [1998], and is not currently capable of performing the work.... 77 CSR 1-4.3 [1994] (emphasis added). The defendant contends that granting a leave of absence to an employee who temporarily cannot work because of a disability cannot be a potential form of required accommodation under disability anti-discrimination lawsbecause the threshold requirement that gives rise to an employer's duty to provide reasonable accommodation is the employee's present or current ability to do the work, with accommodation. In other words, the defendant argues that a person who is temporarily unable to perform the duties of their job, even with on-the-job accommodation, is not entitled to the protections of the West Virginia Human Rights Act. The defendant contends that under the Act, the reasonable accommodation requirement cannot and does not include granting a temporary leave of absence to an employee who is temporarily unable to perform the duties of their job due to a disability. We discuss infra the substantive legal merits of this contention by the defendant. However, as a threshold matter, we determine that the defendant's reliance on this argument in the instant appeal is fatally undercut by a circumstance that is prior to the legal merits of the defendant's argument. That circumstance is the fact that the defendant took a different position at trial, and therefore cannot now raise this argument in asserting error in the proceedings below. Specifically, at an instructions conference before the final arguments of counsel, the defendant's counsel proposed the following instructional language for the charge to the jury: Some disabilities may require the disabled employee to take a leave of absence, and this may be one possible reasonable accommodation to allow the employee an opportunity to recover from the disability and return to their job. The defendant's counsel also re-stated this principle of law in a colloquy in the instructions conference: Plaintiff's counsel: ... I think it's important for them [the jury] to understand that a leave of absence for the disabled employee may be a reasonable accommodation, depending on the facts. Defendant's counsel: We don't dispute that it [a leave of absence] may be a reasonable accommodation.... The defendant also agreed to an instruction that stated: In determining whether a reasonable accommodation existed which would have permitted the plaintiff to have performed the essential functions of her job, you may consider the length of time that the plaintiff was required to be absent from her job. (Emphasis added.) Given the foregoing positions taken by the defendant at trial, the defendant cannot now contend on appeal that the plaintiff was not entitled to assert that the defendant may be required, under our Human Rights Act's protections against disability discrimination, to provide a leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation for a worker like the plaintiff, who is temporarily unable to work due to a disability. Thus, on this assignment of error, the defendant cannot prevail in the instant appeal. However, it appears that the legal question of whether an employee who is temporarily unable to work because of a disability is entitled to the protections of the Act, and whether a leave of absence for such a person may be a required reasonable accommodation, are issues that we have not previously addressed. Both parties have briefed the issues and they are important ones for employers and employees. Consequently, we address them. Initially, we observe that the reading of our Human Rights Act that the defendant is urging upon this Court defies common sense. Consider the hypothetical of a employee with a disability who is unable to work for a week, due to a medical problem arising out of the disabilityand who therefore, with the employer's permission, takes a 1-week leave. What if this employee is then fired during that week, while the employee is unable to work? The defendant's legal position, logically extended, would view such an employee, during that week (at the time of the discriminatory actthe termination), as not able and competent to perform the services required ( W.Va.Code, 5-11-9(1) (1992)); and as not currently capable of performing the work and can do the work ... 77 CSR 1-4.3 [1994] (emphasis added). Such an employee, according to the defendant's reading of our Human Rights Act, is not a qualified person with a disability during a period of time when the employee is unable to work; and therefore, the employee has no standing to claim the protections of our Human Rights Act. It is difficult to find coherence, common sense, or persuasive force in a legal position that would strip the protection of the law against disability discrimination from an employee with a disability that requires the employee to miss work for a weekor indeed, logically extended, even for a day! The defendant directs our attention to a recent case where this Court addressed the issue of whether a person who is unable to work can be a qualified person with a disability who is entitled to the protections of the Act, Hosaflook v. Consolidation Coal Co., 201 W.Va. 325, 497 S.E.2d 174 (1997). In Syllabus Point 6 of Hosaflook, we held: In order to establish a prima facie case of handicap discrimination pursuant to W.Va.Code, 5-11-9 [1992] of the West Virginia Human Rights Act, which provides that it is unlawful [f]or any employer to discriminate against an individual with respect to compensation, hire, tenure, terms, conditions or privileges of employment if the individual is able and competent to perform the services required even if such individual is ... handicapped[,] a claimant must prove, inter alia, that he or she is a qualified handicapped person as that term is defined in 77 C.S.R. § 1-4.2 [1991]. 77 C.S.R. § 1-4.2 [1991] defines qualified handicapped person as an individual who is able and competent, with reasonable accommodation, to perform the essential functions of the job in question. Furthermore, 77 C.S.R. § 1-4.3 [1991] defines able and competent as capable of performing the work and can do the work[.] An individual who can no longer perform the essential functions of a job either with or without reasonable accommodation and, thus, who is receiving benefits under a salary continuance plan which does not provide otherwise, is not performing the essential functions of a job by being a benefit recipient. Therefore, that person is not a qualified handicapped person within the meaning of the West Virginia Human Rights Act. (Emphasis added.) [12] In Hosaflook, we addressed the situation of a person who was permanently and totally disabled, and who by his own admission, cannot presently and will not in the future ever be able to perform the job of mine foreman, either with or without reasonable accommodation.... 201 W.Va. at 331, 497 S.E.2d at 180 (emphasis added). In those circumstances, we found that Mr. Hosaflook, who could no longer work at his jobwith or without reasonable accommodationcould not be a qualified handicapped person for purposes of asserting that the denial of certain disability benefits violated the Human Rights Act. The situation in Hosaflook is a far cry from the plaintiff's situation in the instant case. It would be entirely incorrect to say that the plaintiff fell within the category defined in Hosaflook a person who could no longer perform her job. Rather, the plaintiff needed a leave of absence until her disabling medical condition could improve so as to permit her to return to and perform her job. The Hosaflook case is therefore unpersuasive on behalf of the position advanced by the defendant in the instant case. [13] There is substantial authority in the case law arising out of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12101, et seq. [1990] (the ADA) holding that a medical leave of absence for a person with a disability who is temporarily unable to perform the functions of their job is a form of accommodation that an employer may be required to offer. [14] In Kimbro v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 889 F.2d 869 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 814, 111 S.Ct. 53, 112 L.Ed.2d 28, the court found that an extended leave of absence may be a reasonable accommodation for a disabled employee. Kimbro suffered from cluster migraines, acute headaches which occurred several times per day, and caused debilitation over a period of weeks or months. Kimbro was discharged for excessive absenteeism and sued under Washington's antidiscrimination statute. He alleged, inter alia, that his employer had failed to reasonably accommodate him by not providing him with a leave of absenceto recover from the migraine episode that he was experiencing at the time of his termination, and to seek long-term treatment that might alleviate the condition. Following trial, the district court found no handicap discrimination; on appeal, the circuit court reversed. Noting that Washington's statute was enacted to address the significant impediments that confront the disabled in the workplace, Kimbro, 889 F.2d at 873, the court stated: As long as at the time of Kimbro's termination, there were plausible reasons to believe that the handicap [could have been] accommodated by a leave of absence, ARCO is responsible for its failure to offer such a leave. 889 F.2d at 878. The court noted that [a]n employer bears the burden of establishing that a proposed accommodation `would impose an undue hardship on the conduct of [its] business.' Kimbro, 889 F.2d at 878. Finding that the employer had failed to prove that an extended leave of absence would have imposed an undue burden on its operations, the court found unlawful discrimination. The court reasoned: [I]t was clearly plausible that a leave of absence in 1981 would have provided Kimbro with an opportunity to endure the 1981 acute episode and then return to work unimpaired for the foreseeable future. Moreover, at the time of his discharge, it was also plausible that a prolonged leave from work would have given Kimbro and his physicians an opportunity to design an effective treatment program. While it is altogether possible that Kimbro's migraine episodes may have recurred upon his return to work following a leave of absence, such a possibility does not foreclose a finding of liability for failure to accommodate Kimbro's migraines in 1981. As long as a reasonable accommodation available to the employer could have plausibly enabled a handicapped employee to adequately perform his job, an employer is liable for failing to attempt that accommodation. 889 F.2d at 878-879. The Kimbro approach to a leave of absence was also applied by the court in Cain v. Hyatt, 734 F.Supp. 671 (E.D.Pa.1990). Cain involved a lawyer with AIDS who was fired after he was hospitalized. The Cain court, citing Kimbro, stated: The duty of accommodation dictated that Hyatt could not remove the plaintiff from the position during his first AIDS-related hospitalization without affording him an opportunity to return to work and endeavor to satisfy its demands. To that end, the defendants were obligated to permit the plaintiff to exhaust his sick and vacation days and then, if necessary, place him on a medical leave of absence until he could return to his former job or until the situation posed an undue hardship on Hyatt. Cain, 734 F.Supp. at 683. [15] This Court held in Skaggs v. Elk Run Coal Co., 198 W.Va. 51, 479 S.E.2d 561, 577 (1996), and in Morris Memorial Convalescent Nursing Home v. West Virginia Human Rights Commission, 189 W.Va. 314, 431 S.E.2d 353 (1993), that the purpose of the Human Rights Act requires that the process of determining what constitutes reasonable accommodation in a particular case be flexible, in order to balance the interests of the employee in continued employment and the interests of the employer in avoiding unreasonable burdens or expenses. This Court in Skaggs, 198 W.Va. at 67, 479 S.E.2d at 577, specifically refers to flexibility in schedules. To hold that a leave of absence is, as a matter of law, unreasonablethat disabled employees may never miss work due to their disability without losing the protections of the Actwould be to abandon this flexibility, and to undermine the intent of the Human Rights Act. [16] Based on the foregoing reasoning and authorities, we hold that a qualified disabled person who is protected by the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-1 et. seq. and regulations issued pursuant thereto, includes a person who has a disability and is temporarily unable to perform the requirements of the person's job due to their disability, with or without accommodation. We also hold that under the West Virginia Human Rights Act, W.Va.Code, 5-11-1 et. seq., required reasonable accommodation may include a temporary leave of absence that does not impose an undue hardship upon an employer, for the purpose of recovery from or improvement of the disabling condition that gives rise to an employee's temporary inability to perform the requirements of his or her job. [17] Therefore, the appellant's assignment of error on the qualified individual with a disability issue is without merit. B.