Employers understand that they are required to provide reasonable accommodation to a qualified disabled employee pursuant to the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”). But the reasonable accommodation requirement may extend to a nondisabled employee who is associated with a disabled person. This year, the court in Castro-Ramirez v. Dependable Highway Express, Inc., held that an employer’s denial of reasonable accommodation to a nondisabled employee may be evidence of an “associational disability” discrimination claim.
FEHA provides for a disability discrimination claim based on an employee’s association with a disabled individual by defining a “physical disability” to include association with a physically disabled person. A simple example of associational disability discrimination is the termination of an employee whose spouse has a disability that is costly to the employer because the spouse is covered by the company’s health plan.
In the Castro-Ramirez case, plaintiff Luis Castro-Ramirez was not disabled, but he had a disabled son. When Ramirez began working as a delivery truck driver for Dependable Highway Express (“DHE”), he notified the company that his disabled son required at home dialysis on a daily basis and requested a work schedule that allowed him to administer the dialysis each evening. For nearly three years, DHE provided the requested work schedule.
Things changed, however, when DHE promoted Ramirez’s supervisor and assigned Ramirez to a new supervisor, known as “Junior.” Both Ramirez and his former supervisor informed Junior that Ramirez needed to be at home in the evenings to administer his disabled son’s dialysis. Nevertheless, Junior re-assigned Ramirez to an evening shift. Ramirez requested another shift, but Junior refused. When Ramirez refused to accept the shift, DHE terminated his employment. Ramirez filed suit for various claims, including associational disability discrimination.
The court of appeal reversed the trial court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of DHE. It concluded that Ramirez presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that Ramirez’s association with his disabled son was a substantial motivating factor in Junior’s refusal to honor Ramirez’s scheduling request and the company's decision to terminate him. For example, Junior reassigned Ramirez to a later shift when there were several other earlier shifts available. Junior also lied about the reason for the reassignment, telling Ramirez that an unhappy customer asked that Ramirez no longer make the deliveries when in fact the customer specifically requested Ramirez to do so. The court concluded that one reasonable inference from these facts was that Junior wanted to avoid the inconvenience and distraction of Ramirez’s need to care for his disabled son.
The court expressly stated that it was not deciding whether FEHA establishes a separate duty to reasonably accommodate employees who associate with a disabled person. However, the court recognized that an employer’s duty to provide reasonable accommodation is “significantly intertwined with the statutory prohibition against disability discrimination.” The court also observed, without deciding, that FEHA “may reasonably be interpreted to require accommodation based on the employee’s association with a physically disabled person.” It reasoned that FEHA requires employers to reasonably accommodate the “disabled” and the “disabled” is defined by FEHA to include those associated with the disabled.
What Should Employers Do Now?
Recognizing and properly responding to requests for accommodation is one of the most challenging tasks an employer faces. An established process for reviewing and responding to accommodation requests is important and should include the following:
- Supervisors should be trained on how to identify requests for accommodation that may not be explicitly phrased as such and should be instructed to refer all accommodation requests to human resources.
- Requests for accommodation from a nondisabled employee that relate to a disabled family member should be carefully considered.
- Engage in the interactive process and carefully document that process—do not underestimate the value of engaging in the process in good faith even if the requested accommodation is ultimately rejected.
- Always consider whether federal or state leave laws are implicated by the request for accommodation.