Opinion ID: 158830
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Additional Recovery Time

Text: Plaintiff argues that Defendants were required to provide him with additional recovery time of unspecified duration as an accommodation. “An allowance of time for medical care or treatment may constitute a reasonable accommodation.” Rascon v. U.S. West Communications, Inc., 143 F.3d 1324, 1333-34 (10th Cir. 1998). In Rascon, we qualified this statement, however: “[A]n indefinite unpaid leave is not a reasonable accommodation where the plaintiff fails to present evidence of the expected duration of her impairment.” See also Hudson v. MCI Telecommunications Corp., 87 F.3d 1167 (10th Cir. 1996) (holding that unpaid leave of indefinite duration was not a reasonable accommodation where plaintiff failed to present any evidence of the expected duration of her impairment or prognosis). The district court properly concluded that an indefinite period of medical leave is not a reasonable accommodation in this case. As in Hudson, Plaintiff failed to present 7 evidence of the expected duration of his impairment. At the time Defendant terminated him, Plaintiff had already been on leave for medical treatment for more than one year. Plaintiff’s doctor did not release him to return to work, subject to substantial restrictions, until June 2, 1997. Plaintiff would have required ten and one-half months combined with and following a one year medical leave. Such an accommodation is not reasonable, particularly when Plaintiff had already advised Defendants he would never be able to return to his former position and could not advise when and under what conditions he could return to any work.