[author: Isaac Treadaway]

In a case that helps employers understand what a “reasonable accommodation” is, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a lower court’s ruling of summary judgment for a Georgia employer who was accused of violating the American Disabilities Act.

Scottie Lewis worked for the Georgia Power Company as a lineman. In this role, he was often asked to drive heavy machinery requiring a commercial driver’s license (CDL). Despite having lost the ability to see out of one eye as a young child, Lewis was still eligible to hold a CDL—so long as he timely submitted visual impairment exemption paperwork.

In 2019, when Lewis missed his exemption filing deadline, Georgia Power terminated him for failing to maintain his CDL. Over his approximate two decades of employment, he had two other instances in which his CDL was temporarily suspended. First, in 2007, Lewis was charged with a DUI. Second, in 2017, he accidently lost his CDL and had to re-file his exemption paperwork.

In 2017, Georgia Power had granted Lewis a “reasonable accommodation” of allowing him to work for 30 days while he re-submitted his exemption paperwork. However, in 2019, when he sought the same accommodation, Georgia Power concluded the request was not medically related, rejected the request, and terminated his employment.

According to Georgia Power, possessing a CDL was an “essential function” of the job and, pursuant to the company’s own policies, employees were only provided one non-medical accommodation for failing to maintain their CDLs. Because this was Lewis’s third instance of needing a non-medical accommodation, he was no longer qualified for the position under the company’s policy. Lewis countered that the policy was “arbitrary” because most days he drove a truck that did not require a CDL.

The court’s decision

After Lewis brought suit under the ADA alleging that Georgia Power failed to accommodate his medical condition, a federal district court in Georgia dismissed his claims on summary judgment. That court’s decision was upheld by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

The Eleventh Circuit agreed with Georgia Power that holding a CDL was an “essential function” of Lewis’s job duties. Even though Lewis did not necessarily need a CDL every day, Georgia Power explained that needing a CDL was ‘unpredictable,’ required around 10 to 20 hours most weeks, and, if the lineman did not have a CDL, then Georgia Power was required to pay another employee to cover the his shift. Accordingly, Lewis was not “qualified” for the position without his CDL, and he failed to establish a prima facie case of an ADA failure to accommodate claim.

The takeaway

This case serves as a reminder to all employers that a well-crafted and justified policy (applied uniformly) can be highly beneficial in defending against claims of disability discrimination and/or addressing requests for accommodations. But for Georgia Power’s written policy, the company may not have prevailed on summary judgment; as the court noted, it would not act as a “super-personnel department” and “reexamine” the company’s policy decisions when they were not arbitrary and well-reasoned.

Lewis v. Georgia Power Company, No. 22-11395, 2023 WL 1818924 (11th Cir. Feb. 8, 2023)