The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) generally requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to disabled employees so that they can perform the essential duties of their jobs. This is not news. But what if no feasible accommodation can be identified in an employee’s existing position? Employers are often uncertain about whether they must offer reassignment

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suffered a setback in its attempt to establish that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires an employer to reassign an employee to an available position without having to compete with other candidates for that position.  In EEOC v. St. Joseph’s Hospital, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals

A lab worker with health problems as a result of her work with a solvent submitted the following request for an accommodation: “Avoid any type of work where she would have exposure to organic solvents. Transfer to another line of work. Avoidance of irritants.”

The employer denied the request but offered the plaintiff a full

 To what extent may an employer deny a requested accommodation because of on an employee’s poor performance which is caused by a disability? 

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York denied an employee’s request to telecommute or to relocate his office to a different Fed building because the employee had been rated as “below standards” in

When an employee cannot perform the essential functions of his or her position, with or without an accommodation, due to a disability, an employer must consider “the accommodation of last resort”—transfer to a vacant lateral or lower position for which the employee is qualified.

The circuit courts have split on whether an individual with a