Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California law, employers must engage in an “interactive process” with employees who need an accommodation at work, in order to determine if an accommodation is available. While employers are generally cognizant of the obligation to reasonably accommodate disabled employees, many personnel managers and supervisors inadvertently skip the “interaction” portion of the reasonable accommodation process by not communicating with the employee during the decision-making process.
Even if a good faith determination is made that no accommodation exists for the employee (i.e., no part-time work available, no sedentary positions) the company has an independent obligation to sit down with the employee and interact on the subject before termination. Failure to do so can subject an employer to liability solely on the basis of a “failure to interact.”
