Opinion ID: 4644704
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Facial reasonableness

Text: “A proposed accommodation is not reasonable on its face if it would not enable the employee to perform the essential function at issue.” Id. at 1267; see also Adair v. City of Muskogee, 823 F.3d 1297, 1311 (10th Cir. 2016) (“We have consistently held that 18 an employee’s request to be relieved from an essential function of his position is not, as a matter of law, a reasonable or even plausible accommodation.” (brackets, ellipsis, and quotations omitted)); Frazier, 254 F.3d at 1261 (“Although job restructuring is a possible accommodation . . . , an accommodation that eliminates the essential function of the job is not reasonable.” (brackets and quotations omitted)). “Simply put, an employer need not modify an essential function of an existing position in order to accommodate a disabled employee.” Adair, 823 F.3d at 1311 (quotations omitted). This rule is not absolute. For example, although “[a]ttendance is generally an ‘essential’ function of any job,” an employee’s taking leave may serve as a reasonable accommodation if doing so would enable the employee to perform the job’s essential functions in the near future. See Cisneros v. Wilson, 226 F.3d 1113, 1129 (10th Cir. 2000).10 For such leave to be reasonable, (1) “[t]he employee must provide the employer an estimated date when she can resume her essential duties,” and (2) “[a] leave request must assure an employer that an employee can perform the essential functions of her position in the ‘near future.’” Robert, 691 F.3d at 1218 (quoting Cisneros, 226 F.3d at 1129). 10 Overruled on other grounds by Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001), as recognized in Robert v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs of Brown Cnty., 691 F.3d 1211 (10th Cir. 2012). 19 b. Application Mr. Mannan argues that CDOC could have accommodated his disability by extending his transitional duty in the control room.11 But he cannot show this accommodation is facially reasonable. Mr. Mannan’s essential functions were those of a CO, not his tasks when temporarily assigned to the control room.12 An assignment that would relieve him from performing his essential functions as a CO is not reasonable as a matter of law. See Adair, 823 F.3d at 1311; Osborne, 798 F.3d at 1267. Mr. Mannan argues that “[b]y placing [him] in the [control room] for a month, . . . [CDOC] showed that it could reasonably accommodate [him]” there. See Aplt. Br. at 15. Although CDOC provided Mr. Mannan a transitional duty assignment to the control room, that does not mean a more permanent assignment there would have been a reasonable accommodation. The transitional duty assignment may have provided a more generous accommodation than the Rehabilitation Act requires to be “reasonable.” See 11 In his complaint, Mr. Mannan also referenced the reassignment to an open dispatcher job as a reasonable accommodation. But Mr. Mannan does not raise that argument in his briefs. In any event, given Mr. Mannan’s pay grade, reassignment to this position would have been a promotion, see App., Vol. 1 at 132, and an employer is “not require[d] . . . to promote a disabled employee as an accommodation,” White v. York Int’l Corp., 45 F.3d 357, 362 (10th Cir. 1995). 12 Insofar as Mr. Mannan asked to be reassigned to a permanent job in the control room, no such position exists. COs rotate through the control room. And “[i]t is not reasonable to require an employer to create a new job for the purpose of reassigning an employee to that job.” Smith v. Midland Brake, Inc., 180 F.3d 1154, 1174 (10th Cir. 1999) (en banc). 20 Holbrook v. City of Alpharetta, 112 F.3d 1522, 1528 (11th Cir. 1997) (noting that the defendant’s “previous accommodation may have exceeded that which the law requires”). Extending his assignment to the control room would have been an “accommodation that eliminates an essential function of a job.” See Hancock v. Wash. Hosp. Ctr., 13 F. Supp. 3d 1, 6 (D.D.C. 2014), aff’d, 618 F. App’x 4 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (unpublished). “[E]ven if the employer voluntarily provided such an accommodation in the past,” it remains “unreasonable.” Id.13 Thus, CDOC’s temporary assignment of Mr. Mannan to the control room in July 2017 did not require CDOC to extend his assignment there. Mr. Mannan also suggests that such an accommodation would have been reasonable because he could have performed the essential functions of a CO in the near future. He relies on our case law recognizing that leave itself can be a reasonable accommodation. But Mr. Mannan fails to identify any authority expanding this case law to require extension of his transitional duty.14 In any event, Mr. Mannan failed to meet the requirements to avail himself of a temporary leave accommodation. He did not provide an estimated date for his resuming the essential functions of a CO. See Robert, 691 F.3d at 1218. Rather, he repeatedly 13 The First, Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits agree. See Phelps v. Optima Health, Inc., 251 F.3d 21, 26 (1st Cir. 2001); Walton v. Mental Health Ass’n. of Se. Pa., 168 F.3d 661, 671 (3rd Cir. 1999); Basith v. Cook Cnty., 241 F.3d 919, 930 (7th Cir. 2001); Holbrook, 112 F.3d at 1528. 14 Even though CDOC did not continue Mr. Mannan’s transitional duty, it allowed him to take leave for several months. 21 delayed having the surgery that may have restored his ability to perform the essential functions. More than six months passed from his removal from transitional duty in August 2017 to his termination in March 2018 without undergoing surgery. See Hwang v. Kan. State Univ., 753 F.3d 1159, 1163 (10th Cir. 2014) (“[H]olding onto a nonperforming employee for six months just isn’t something the Rehabilitation Act ordinarily compels.”). Finally, Mr. Mannan argues that other officers received transitional assignments in the control room for more than a month, suggesting a longer assignment for him would have been a reasonable accommodation. But Mr. Mannan has not shown that those who received these transitional assignments were similarly situated to him. See Garvey v. Sullivan, 773 F. App’x 634, 637 (2d Cir. 2019) (unpublished) (rejecting plaintiff’s argument that “his requested accommodation is consistent with Defendants’ admitted past practices” regarding “light duty assignments” for police officers—and thus reasonable—where the “instances involving other officers were not comparable” (quotations omitted));15 see also Hiatt v. Colo. Seminary, 858 F.3d 1307, 1318 (10th Cir. 2017) (holding that a similarly situated claim must have evidentiary support). Even if he could, his argument still fails because an employer’s willingness to provide employees with an accommodation that relieves them of performing essential functions does not 15 Although not precedential within either the Tenth Circuit or the Second Circuit, see 2d Cir. R. 32.1.1(a), we find this reasoning persuasive and cite the case for its persuasive value, see 10th Cir. R. 32.1; 2d Cir. R. 32.1.1(b)(1); see also Fed. R. App. P. 32.1. 22 make the accommodation “reasonable.” See Hancock, 13 F. Supp. 3d at 6; Garvey, 773 F. App’x at 637 (“[E]ven assuming that . . . other employees were similarly situated to [the plaintiff], prior assignment of temporary light-duty work to other disabled employees does not constitute an admission that such light-duty work is a reasonable accommodation . . . .”).16