Speaker 1: The top 12 or so mistakes that are made in a disability reasonable accommodation case. And I want to talk about not just the mistakes, but the fixes that you can do. It's about actually getting what you want. If you do these things, then it could make your case stronger. And these are the mistakes that I see often. A failure to engage in the interactive process. This is what I call the ball is in your court defense. See, an employer, at some point, they're going to put the ball in your court. And they're going to say, well, the employee didn't provide me this. They didn't provide us this or that. They didn't follow up. The employer gets back to you and says, well, we need medical information to support your disability. Because if your disability is not obvious, it's OK for them to ask for a reasonable amount of medical information. The employee cannot slack. Don't give the other side ammunition. OK, they pass the ball in your court. Make sure you pick up that ball and make sure you respond back. Make sure that you're doing your part. The second mistake that I see that employees make is that they give insufficient information. You know, what are your restrictions? How can you do the job? Your doctor needs to look at the essential functions of your position and say, OK, they can do this job, but they need this. They need that because X, Y, Z. And they can do this job, the essential functions. On the other hand, and this brings me to my third mistake that employees make, they come up with restrictions that are overly restrictive. In other words, you could restrict yourself out of a job. I'm only talking about reasonable accommodation here, which is you have to be able to do the essential functions of your job. What reasonable accommodation is going to allow you to perform your essential functions of your position? You have to be able to do the job. You have to be able to do the essential functions of your position unless the shoe doesn't fit, unless you're going for reassignment. That brings me to my next mistake. They're going to request reassignment as an accommodation, but reassignment is an accommodation of last choice. Don't rely on just the employer to go out and look for positions. You need to be actively in practice. You need to be actively looking. Another mistake that kind of goes along with this is that you've just restricted yourself out of a job and the employer can medically remove you from your position. That's right. You can't do the job. There's no reasonable accommodation that exists. There's no reassignment. So guess what the next step is? They're going to remove you. The next mistake that I see employees making is they really fail to actually identify accommodations. I'm not talking about just your doctor. You know your job. Why don't you suggest accommodations? Do that so that you are engaging in an interactive process. Don't just leave it up to the employer to figure it out. Suggest good accommodations. And many accommodations are not undue hardships. You know, I'm going to get to what I think is an undue hardship or unreasonable accommodation at the end of this podcast. But this does lead me to my next mistake that I see employees making. They get too stuck on the accommodation of their choice. You know, it doesn't work like that. You know why? Because the employer ultimately has the decision-making power to choose a reasonable accommodation, not the accommodation of the employee's choice. This leads me to my next mistake. The employee fails to advise the employer how the alternative accommodation is ineffective or the interim accommodation that you're getting while awaiting a decision on your reasonable accommodation request. How is it ineffective? But remember, be careful here. You need to suggest alternative accommodations. Again, you don't want to overly restrict yourself out of a job. Some people just fail to make a reasonable accommodation request to begin with. No magic words are needed for an accommodation request, but I always recommend using the magic words in practice. That means saying, I am requesting a reasonable accommodation for my disability, period. There's nobody who can come around later and say, oh, I wasn't aware that he had a disability. I wasn't aware that she needed an accommodation. You see, that happens all the time. So make sure that you're actually requesting an accommodation. And another mistake that goes along with that mistake is not requesting leave as an accommodation and instead racking up excessive absences in AWOLs and leave without pays and attendance problems. If you're running into a situation where you have to be at the doctor a lot because of your medical condition, please immediately put in for a reasonable accommodation request, flexible scheduling, flexible leave, make sure your doctor backs you on that. So leave can be an accommodation. Another mistake is that employees request accommodations from the wrong people. This doesn't happen often, but here are the three people that you can request an accommodation from. And any one of these would suffice. I recommend pulling all three in, you know, and the first person is the supervisor who actually supervises you on a day-to-day, the person who actually is familiar with the work and assigns you to work. I really think you need to pull in human resources, pull in HR, employee labor relations, ELR. You know, each company might have a reasonable accommodation coordinator. Make sure you're coordinating with the right person. And again, make sure you're following up, interactive process. Remember, we talked about that. Another mistake that I see regarding following up is failing to follow up in writing. If you didn't do it in writing, it didn't happen. Not literally, but for all intents and purposes, for practical purposes, you got to put it in writing. If you talk to them verbally, they're just going to deny that it happened, probably. They're going to say their version of events. You don't have any witnesses. Sometimes employers will delay it indefinitely and pass the buck back to the employee and say, oh, well, we were waiting on the employee to get us this or this or that. So don't let them do that. To make your reasonable accommodation case strong. Here's another mistake, a big mistake, asking for an accommodation that is unreasonable. Here are some examples of some classic unreasonable accommodations. You are asking that you not have to be around your supervisor. OK, the EEOC's enforcement guidance says that that is generally not a reasonable accommodation. There's always exceptions. Changing the way you interact with that supervisor, you know, that kind of thing. Requesting other people to help you with your weightlifting restrictions, for example, or to help you with your work in addition to their work. That's generally not a reasonable accommodation. Requesting extensive absences. Just be reasonable about if you're going to request leave as an accommodation, maybe request some kind of flexible schedule or some, you know, incorporate breaks into your request. I don't know your case. OK, because I'm not your lawyer unless I gave you this podcast and you're my client, then you're my client. So, you know, take this for what it is. It's free guidance, but every case is different. But this is what I see based on my experience in doing this day in and day out for years. I really hope this is helping people. So, Attorney Kevin Kranz signing off.