Excessive Absenteeism And Reasonable Accommodation: Where To Draw The Line?

Some employers may feel caught off-guard when one of their employees is absent from work for lengthy and sometimes repeated periods of time, owing to a medical condition. On the one hand, most employers today are well aware of their duty to accommodate employees with disabilities of whatever nature. On the other hand, the chronic, if not excessive, absences of such employees can give rise to operational difficulties for employers, who nevertheless wish to comply with their obligations. In such circumstances, employers face a legal dilemma which is not easily resolved: at what point does an employee's excessive absenteeism due to illness become an excessive constraint, allowing the employer to terminate the employee for administrative reasons?