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On July 11, 2003, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided a case under the disability provisions of the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act (WFEA) that will require Wisconsin employers to revise how present and future cases are evaluated. The case is Crystal Lake Cheese Factory v. Labor and Industry Review Commission and Susan Catlin, 2003 WI 106 (Wis., 2003).
This case is difficult to apply because there were limited facts regarding the responsibilities of the job and the disabled employee's limitations or the extent the employee could perform her previous job. No effective expert testimony was presented. The employee became a quadriplegic following a car accident. The Court accepted the fact that she could not perform all of her job responsibilities and, without challenged testimony, her mother and sister testified that they were willing to perform the work that Catlin could not perform. Therefore, the Court concluded that the employer did not reasonably accommodate Catlin by creating, in effect, a "new" job. These bad facts have created a confusing decision that may be overworked by plaintiffs and their attorneys in future claims.
Summary of the Crystal Lake Holding
The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that employers may be required to retain and accommodate disabled employees even if the accommodations would not allow the employee to perform all of the functions of the employee's position. In what we view as a significant and unjustified intrusion on employers' rights to assign core job duties consistent with their operational needs, the Court held that employers may be required to restructure disabled employees' job responsibilities so as to eliminate those duties that an employee is unable to perform. Unlike the Americans with Disabilities Act, this case makes no distinction between essential/core/primary job duties and those that are merely marginal/non-essential/secondary functions of the disabled employee's position.
This decision presents serious challenges for Wisconsin employers because:
- Under the Crystal Lake decision, any time an employee's physical/mental impairments preclude him/her from performing their particular job, the employer must consider "restructuring" that job as a reasonable accommodation.
- It appears that the Court rejected the "essential functions/marginal function" analysis typically applied under the ADA to determine whether job restructuring may be a reasonable accommodation, without providing any guidance or alternative analytical framework that employers can use to determine the extent of job "restructuring" that may reasonably be required to accommodate a disabled employee; and
- The restructuring requirement imposed by the Crystal Lake decision would appear to apply with equal force to job applicants with disabilities. Consequently, the Court also left open the implications of this decision on the hiring process.
For more information about this important case, see our September Issue of the Month at www.krukowski.com.
For more information about the ADA and other employment law issues, call Krukowski & Costello, S.C. at (414) 423-1330, or e-mail our educational services department.
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