Reasonable Accommodation

One of the main areas where I see employers botch their legal duties to their employees (and thereby potentially invite lawsuits) arises with employees who request disability leaves. There are different laws that provide for disability-related leave, such as the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the analogous California Family Rights Act (CFRA) (both of which apply only to employers with 50 or more employees), as well as California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave law. But the most common type of leave requested is disability leave under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).

I’ve previously written about the importance of distributing employee handbooks, employment arbitration agreements and confidentiality agreements to your workforce. However, if you have employees who have little English literacy, it is important that you also provide translations of these key documents to your non-English speaking employees.

California employers with five or more employees have an affirmative legal duty to provide reasonable accommodation to their employees with physical or mental disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. This duty requires the employer to engage in an “interactive process,” which is the means by which a reasonable accommodation is selected. Not knowing when to initiate the interactive process is one of the biggest missteps that employers can make, which may lead to costly disability discrimination lawsuits down the line.