Recent Massachusetts Cases Illustrate Fact-intensive Process for Determining Whether a Disabled Employee´s Request for Accommodation is Reasonable

Most experienced managers already appreciate that, whenever a handicapped or disabled employee requests a workplace accommodation to perform an essential job function, the employer is required to provide the accommodation only when it is reasonable. Sometimes more difficult to understand is that the necessary determination of reasonableness always is dependent on the individual employee's particular job responsibilities and circumstances as they relate to his or her particular request. Another way of saying this is that the process of determining whether a requested accommodation is reasonable is always going to be "fact-intensive and case-specific."

Two recent Massachusetts cases illustrate this well. At issue in each was whether an employer is required to accommodate a disabled employee by allowing the employee to work at a location other than the workplace preferred by the employer. For reasons explained below, the two courts reached divergent results. The holding in one