Many factors come into play when employers set work hours for employees, including such things as operational requirements or customers’ needs. On occasion, though, employees may request that their employers modify their work schedules to accommodate a health issue or disability.

Vision impairment and the job

James Kimmons worked for Charter Communications at its Milwaukee, Wisconsin, call center. To handle customer inquiries, his job required him to work on-site at the call center. Kimmons, who lived an hour away in Racine, worked a noon to 9pm shift.

Kimmons, who was diagnosed with cataracts, experienced glare and blurred objects in low light conditions. Seeing in the dark became difficult, and Kimmons’ optometrist recommended that he not drive at night.

Request for modified work schedule

In order to avoid a nighttime commute, Kimmons asked his employer to allow him to begin work and end work earlier each day. Charter agreed, modifying his schedule so that he worked a 10am – 7pm shift. This permitted Kimmons to be off the highways after dark. However, the employer only approved the modified work schedule for a period of 30 days.

As the end of the 30-day period neared, Kimmons requested another 30 days of modified hours while he tried to move closer to the call center. Charter immediately rejected Kimmons’ request, telling him that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) did not require Charter to assist with his commuting challenges. After Kimmons resumed working his noon to 9pm schedule, Charter suggested that he use public transportation or carpool with other employees who lived near him.

Unsuccessful commuting and EEOC lawsuit

When Kimmons looked into public transportation as was suggested by his employer, he learned that no buses operated at the time his shift ended. To identify potential carpooling options, he asked Charter for the names of other employees who lived near him, but Charter refused, stating the information was confidential. Further, his efforts to use friends for transportation proved unreliable. Kimmons ultimately determined he could not afford the cost and never moved to Milwaukee. His employment with Charter ended a few months later, but it was unrelated to his work hours or commuting difficulties.

Kimmons subsequently filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After conducting its investigation, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against Charter alleging that the employer had violated the ADA by summarily rejecting Kimmons’ request for a 30-day extension of his modified work schedule. Essentially, Charter argued that its obligations were limited to accommodations at the workplace, and that the ADA did not require the company to assist or accommodate employees’ travel needs to and from work.

Consider a work schedule accommodation

Unquestionably, Kimmons’ cataracts amounted to a “disability” under the ADA, and the optometrist’s description of his sight impairment and his inability to drive safely at night cinched that.

The federal appeals court reviewing the EEOC’s case pointed out that the ADA specifically contemplated a modified work schedule as a potential accommodation. Where applicable, employers should consider such a request as an option.

Next, the court addressed whether an employer’s accommodation duties went as far as accommodating disability-related difficulties getting to and from work. The court of appeals decided that accommodation requests involving a disabled employee’s transportation problems should be decided on a case-by-case basis, which could include modifying a work schedule for disability-related commuting problems in some cases. Like any other accommodation request under the ADA, the accommodation request must be reasonable and cannot impose an undue hardship on the employer.

Charter’s out-of-hand rejection of Kimmons’ request for 30 more days of modified work hours and its failure to explain what burden it would face from granting the extension means a jury will decide whether it violated its ADA accommodation obligations to Kimmons.

• EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC, No. 22-1231 (7th Cir. 7/28/23)