Disability Accommodation No Longer Medical Necessity in Washington State
In a decision last week, Johnson v. Chevron, the Washington State Court of Appeals held that an employee was not required to prove that his disability accommodation was “medically necessary” to enable him to perform his job. Johnson had sued the employer, asserting state law claims for race discrimination (disparate treatment) and disability discrimination (disparate treatment and failure to reasonably accommodate). The trial court granted summary judgment in the employer’s favor on Johnson’s accommodation claim, and the employer prevailed after a jury trial on the remaining claims.
The Appeals Court reversed concluding that: 1) “[t]he evidence was sufficient for a jury to find either that Johnson’s impairment had a substantially limiting effect on his ability to perform his job, or that the evidence, including medical documentation, established a reasonable likelihood that engaging in job functions without accommodation would aggravate the impairment to the extent that it would become substantially limiting[;]” and 2) the trial court had erred when it instructed the jury that Johnson was required to produce comparator evidence in support of his disparate treatment claims.
Importantly, the Court of Appeals rejected the proposition that Johnson was required to show that accommodation was “medically necessary” to enable him to perform his job. The Appeals Court ruling states that the 2007 statutory changes, which retroactively revised the Washington Law Against Discrimination’s definition of “disability” for accommodation purposes supersede, the “common law definitions” used in earlier WA disability case law, and that:
“‘Medical necessity’ is no longer the sole basis for a right to accommodation. Under the new statute, either the impairment must be the source of a substantial limitation or there must be medical documentation indicating a reasonable likelihood that engaging in the job duties without accommodation ‘would aggravate the impairment to the extent that it would create a substantially limiting effect.’”
This decision runs afoul of earlier Washington case law including Hill v. BCTI Income Fund-I, 144 Wn.2d 172, 194 (2001) and Pulcino v v. Federal Express Corp., 141 Wn.2d 629, 640 (2000). We suspect this case will be appealed by Chevron to our State Supreme Court. For the full decision, see: http://case.lawmemo.com/wa/johnson.pdf.
