How well to you know the ADA?

The American With Disabilities Act his summer will mark its 32nd anniversary. The law created requirements for companies to provide reasonable accommodations to help employees perform the essential functions of their jobs.

In doing so, it also encouraged employers and employees to communicate better through the “interactive process,” which refers to the collaborative process between an employer and employee to determine if the employee can return to work with or without a reasonable accommodation following an — on or off the job — injury or disease, for example.

Here's a test to measure your knowledge.

True or false

1. Congress passed, and President George H.W. Bush signed into law, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Seventeen years later, his son President George W. Bush, signed into law the American With Disabilities Amendments Act of 2008, which expanded several key provisions of ADA in favor of employers.

Answer: True.

2. When there are several qualified applicants for a job and one has a disability, the ADA requires the employer to hire that person.

Answer: False. However, an employer should hire the most qualified applicant and an applicant’s disability should not be considered in the decision making process — unless there is no reasonable accommodation to permit them to perform the essential job functions.

3. Under the ADA, my employer cannot force me to get a vaccine shot if I have a doctor’s excuse prohibiting it.

Answer: True, subject to the ADA’s reasonable accommodation and undue hardship analysis. An employee who does not get vaccinated due to a disability — covered by the ADA or Iowa Civil Rights Act — or a sincerely held religious belief, practice or observance — covered by Title VII of the federal civil rights act — may be entitled to a reasonable accommodation that does not pose an undue hardship on the operation of the employer’s business.

For example, as a reasonable accommodation, an unvaccinated employee entering the workplace might wear a face mask, work at a social distance from co-workers or non-employees, work a modified shift, get periodic tests for COVID-19, be given the opportunity to telework or accept a reassignment.

Employees who are not vaccinated because of pregnancy may be entitled, under Title VII, to adjustments to keep working, if the employer makes modifications or exceptions for other employees. These modifications may be the same as the accommodations made for an employee based on disability or religion.

4. People with disabilities get special privileges, known as accommodations.

Answer: False. An employer must only provide reasonable accommodations to ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities have rights in employment equal to, not superior, to those of individuals without disabilities.

5. "Disability" as defined under ADA is the same as the term — “serious health condition” as defined under the Family and Medical Leave Act. As a result, if an employee is not eligible for FMLA leave, then they need not be considered for leave under ADA.

Answer: False. The two terms have vastly different meanings. The chief difference is that the FMLA term serious health condition can and often does cover short-term episodes of illness or injury, while the ADA covered disability is not designed for a temporary impairment.

6. A sprained back is a "disability" covered by ADA.

Answer: False. This is a flat out assertion that such a condition is always covered. Remember that each case is decided on the individualized assessment of whether the employee presents with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.

So the correct answer is, “it depends.”

7. It is completely acceptable and a "best practice" to limit all leaves of absence to one year.

Answer: False. It is a dangerous practice to have a blanket leave-of-absence rule and that has become a target for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s class action program.

The case law is clear that the assessment of an accommodation of disabilities must be done on an individualized basis and not merely on arbitrary time periods. So an unpaid leave of absence of a certain period of time, depending on the facts, may be reasonable.

The EEOC argues that a one-size-fits-all approach violates the ADA’s fundamental principles — except, an unpaid leave of absence of an unknown duration is generally never a reasonable accommodation.

8. The ADA places a financial burden on small businesses that can’t afford to make accommodations for people with disabilities.

Answer: False. Companies with fewer than 15 employees are not covered by the ADA’s provisions, although they may be covered by Iowa’s Civil Rights Act if they have four employees.

Any covered employer does not have to provide a reasonable accommodation that would cause an “undue hardship,” which is defined as an action require significant difficulty or expense given the size of the employer and financial resources available to it.

As one can see, the ADA deals with questions of great importance in everyday human resource decision making, but requires HR professionals — and their attorneys — to engage in often complex factual and legal analysis.

Wilford H. Stone is a lawyer with Lynch Dallas in Cedar Rapids.