Employers are not required to grant an employee’s desired accommodation, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has confirmed. Instead, they need only provide one that is effective.
The court reached that conclusion in Noll v. IBM, No. 13-4096-cv (2nd Cir. May 21, 2015) when it determined that IBM had accommodated a deaf employee by providing American Sign Language interpreters for videos, despite his preference for captions and transcripts.
Facts of the Case
IBM provided Alfred J. Noll, a software engineer who is deaf, access to on-site and remote ASL interpreters for company meetings. It also provided him with captions and transcripts for audio and video files on the company intranet upon request. Captioning and transcription took several days, however, and Noll sometimes used ASL interpreters instead, despite finding them less effective because it was “confusing and tiring” to look back and forth between a video and an interpreter.
He sued, alleging that IBM failed to reasonably accommodate his disability by ensuring that all audio and video files were posted with captions or a transcript.
IBM moved for summary judgment, arguing that the provision of an interpreter was plainly “reasonable,” as required by the ADA. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York agreed and granted summary judgment for IBM.
Noll appealed, arguing that the court ignored evidence that created a genuine dispute about the effectiveness of interpreters.
Appeals Court Weighs In
The appeals court acknowledged that the reasonableness of an accommodation is often a fact-specific question that should be left for a jury. However, an interpreter was plainly reasonable in this case, it found.
According to the ADA’s regulations, an accommodation is reasonable if it enables the individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of his job and enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment. It must be effective, but need not be the accommodation the employee prefers, the court said.
“We do not doubt that the need to split visual focus was a disadvantage that likely tired or annoyed Noll,” the 2nd Circuit said, but, “in this case, the disadvantage did not render IBM’s accommodations ineffective.”
The court noted, however, that its ruling does not mean that ASL interpreters will always be an effective accommodation. For example, sometimes technical information cannot be fully and accurately because ASL does not correspond exactly to English, the court said, citing EEOC v. UPS Supply Chain Solutions, 620 F.3d 1103, 1105 (9th Cir. 2010)).
Logistical constraints also could render an interpreter ineffective in certain jobs, but that is not the case in Noll, the court said. “In this case, Noll was fluent in ASL, and there is no evidence that the interpreters IBM provided were unqualified or that the use of interpreters was somehow inconsistent with Noll’s position as a software engineer. Noll’s sole objection — that he had to look back and forth between an interpreter and his screen — did not, without more, make that accommodation unreasonable,” the 2nd Circuit said, affirming summary judgment for IBM.
Dissent
Judge Robert D. Sack dissented, saying that the question of the accommodation’s reasonableness should have been left to a jury.
The evidence provided to the court was not enough to find an ASL interpreter plainly reasonable at the summary judgment stage, he said. “It seems to me that […] Noll has offered evidence ‘from which a reasonable inference could be drawn’ that it would have been ineffective,” Sack said.
“It is, of course, possible that a trier of fact, after hearing all of the relevant evidence in this case, would conclude that Noll’s disabilities were indeed reasonably accommodated by IBM,” Sack noted. “I do not think, however, that the record before the district court contained evidence sufficient to permit the court to short-circuit that process by granting the defendant judgment without the input of a trier of fact based upon evidence presented to it at trial.”
For more information on employers’ accommodation responsibilities, visit Thompson’s HR Compliance Expert.