Opinion ID: 216421
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Essential Function and Reasonable Accommodation

Text: The ADA requires an employer to make reasonable accommodations that will allow a qualified individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of his or her job. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). IDOT argues that working above 25 feet in an extreme or exposed position is an essential function of members of the bridge crew and that Miller's requested accommodation was unreasonable. The district court agreed and granted summary judgment for IDOT on this basis. Viewing the evidence in the light reasonably most favorable to Miller, a reasonable jury could find that such work was not an essential function of the job and that Miller was requesting a reasonable accommodation: after all, he was asking only that he be allowed to work as he had worked successfully for several years. We first consider whether there is a genuine dispute of fact as to whether working above 25 feet in an extreme position was an essential function of Miller's job as a highway maintainer on the bridge crew. We first look to the federal regulations, which instruct us to consider the following categories of evidence: (i) The employer's judgment as to which functions are essential; (ii) Written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job; (iii) The amount of time spent on the job performing the function; (iv) The consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function; (v) The terms of a collective bargaining agreement; (vi) The work experience of past incumbents in the job; and/or (vii) The current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n)(3). Under this standard, the employer's judgment is an important factor, but it is not controlling. Under factors (vi) and (vii), we also look to evidence of the employer's actual practices in the workplace. We are confident that some high work in exposed or extreme positions is an essential function of the bridge crew as a whole. IDOT would have us take that point a step further to find that any individual assigned to the bridge crew had to be able to perform each and every task of the entire bridge crew. That would require finding that every task required of the bridge crew as a whole was an essential task of each bridge crew member. On this record, we cannot make that finding as a matter of law. Plaintiff has come forward with substantial evidence showing that his bridge crew did not actually work that way. The bridge crew worked as a team. No one person was assigned permanently to any one task. Although individual members of the team did various tasks as needed, there was no requirement that the bridge crew members rotate from task to task in an organized, routine fashion, such that it was necessary for any one member of the bridge crew to be able to do every task of the bridge crew as a whole. Miller has presented evidence that, at least prior to March 23, 2006, the team accommodated the various skills, abilities, and limitations of the individual team members by organizing itself according to those skills, abilities, and limitations. Maurizio could not weld, so the other members did the welding when it was required. Another co-worker refused to ride in the snooper bucket, so those tasks, when needed, went to others. This was also true of bridge spraying, yard mowing, and debris raking for a crew member with allergies. As in other team environments, the individual members took on tasks according to their capacities and abilities. Here, a reasonable fact-finder would have to conclude that some members of the bridge crew had to be able to work at heights in exposed or extreme positions so that the bridge crewas a unitcould do its job, just as some members of the crew had to be able to weld, ride in the snooper bucket, spray, mow, and rake. That conclusion does not mean that the fact-finder would be required to conclude that each member of the bridge crew had to be able to do every task required of the entire team. In terms of the regulation, the evidence of actual experience of past and present incumbents in the job and similar jobs conflicts with the employer's judgment about which functions are essential. See 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n)(3). On this record, a reasonable jury could find that working at heights in an exposed or extreme position was not an essential function for Miller as an individual member of the bridge crew. From this same evidence, a reasonable jury could find that Miller's request for accommodationthat other members of his team substitute for him when a task required working above 25 feet in an exposed or extreme positionwas reasonable. The statute provides that the term reasonable accommodation may include job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, reassignment to a vacant position, acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, appropriate adjustment or modifications of examinations, training materials or policies, the provision of qualified readers or interpreters, and other similar accommodations for individuals with disabilities. 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B). The ADA does not give employers unfettered discretion to decide what is reasonable. The law requires an employer to rethink its preferred practices or established methods of operation. Employers must, at a minimum, consider possible modifications of jobs, processes, or tasks so as to allow an employee with a disability to work, even where established practices or methods seem to be the most efficient or serve otherwise legitimate purposes in the workplace. See, e.g., Vande Zande v. State of Wisconsin Dep't of Administration, 44 F.3d 538, 542 (7th Cir.1995) (It is plain enough what `accommodation' means. The employer must be willing to consider making changes in its ordinary work rules, facilities, terms, and conditions in order to enable a disabled individual to work.). When considering other work environments, we have upheld determinations that requests for a helper employee and requests to rotate work tasks were unreasonable. For instance, in Lenker v. Methodist Hospital, 210 F.3d 792 (7th Cir.2000), a nurse with multiple sclerosis was unable to lift patients. He requested that he be permitted to use assistive devices or call for help when he was unable to lift a patient. On review, we upheld the jury's verdict in favor of the employer. We found sufficient evidence in the record from which the jury could reasonably find (a) that assistive devices might help to lift a patient out of bed but would not help a patient walk down the hall or to the bathroom, and (b) that other staff would not be able to assist at all times, particularly in a staff shortage or a hospital emergency. See id. at 796-97. In another case, we upheld summary judgment against an equipment operator who suffered a shoulder injury and was no longer able to lift or carry anything over fifty pounds. See Peters v. City of Mauston, 311 F.3d 835, 840 (7th Cir.2002). That employee also requested that his employer permit another employee to help him with the lifting requirements of his job. We found that the request was unreasonable because lifting and carrying were essential functions of his job as an equipment operator. Making the accommodation would have required another person to perform an essential function of the employee's job. See id. at 845; see also Miller v. Illinois Department of Corrections, 107 F.3d 483, 485 (7th Cir.1997) (if an employer has a legitimate reason for specifying multiple duties for a particular job classification, duties the occupant of the position is expected to rotate through, a disabled employee will not be qualified for the position unless he can perform enough of these duties to enable a judgment that he can perform its essential duties) (emphasis in original); Cochrum v. Old Ben Coal Co., 102 F.3d 908, 912 (7th Cir.1996) (holding that employee's request that employer hire a helper to perform essential function was unreasonable; hiring a helper to perform the overhead work would mean the helper would de facto perform [the employee's] job. We cannot agree that [the employee] would be performing the essential functions of his job with a helper.). These cases teach that task reassignments within a job can be unreasonable in situations where the reassigned task is an essential function of the job. In those situations, reassignment or delegation of the task would equate, essentially, to reassignment or delegation of the job itself. What sets this case apart from those earlier cases is Miller's evidence that it was in fact the normal course for individual members of the bridge crew to substitute and reassign tasks among themselves according to individual abilities, preferences, and limitations. Miller's request for reasonable accommodation did not ask IDOT to do anything it was not already doing (or, at least, anything it had not been doing up until March 2006). The record on summary judgment, taken in the light reasonably most favorable to Miller, does not compel a finding that IDOT required every employee working as a highway maintainer on a bridge crew to be able to work in an exposed or extreme position above 25 feet in the air or that being able to do so was an essential function of the job. To the contrary, the record confirms that it was a regular occurrence for individuals on the bridge team to share and swap tasks according to their individual capacities, abilities, and limitations. Miller's request that task assignments be adjusted among the bridge crew members so that he would not be confronted with a task requiring him to work above 25 feet in an exposed or extreme position did not amount to a request that another member of the team perform an essential, non-delegable task. A jury should be permitted to consider Miller's actual work environment and IDOT's past flexibility in delegating tasks amongst the bridge team members in deciding whether Miller's request for accommodation was reasonable. [2]