The King v United Parcel Service (2007) case makes several important points about disability related employment case. One of those lessons is the importance of requesting accommodations to a disability, or at the very least alerting and informing the employer about the disability or the medical condition that you suffer from, the symptoms you are dealing with and how they affect your ability to perform your job duties. In King, a 30-year employee of UPS was terminated for allegedly falsifying a time card just two months after returning from medical leave in connection with a serious medical condition. The rare and somewhat unique element of the case is that the Court of Appeal was pretty clear in expressing sympathy toward the Plaintiff, even though the Court held against the him, dismissing all claims. In that case, the Court analyzed all of Plaintiff's claims and noted that the claim for failure to accommodate was a close one but still had to be dismissed because the terminated employee did not communicate his symptoms to his employer upon return, did not request any kinds of accommodations, and therefore the employer simply was not on any kind of notice of King's need for accommodations. This mistake is so easy to avoid through a simple request for reasonable accommodation letter that every employee who needs and accommodation should fill out and forward to his superiors and the human resources department. Please read below the full text of the court's decision in the King v UPS case. Add Comment Watch this brief video for important advice on requesting reasonable accommodations to your medical condition at workplace in California and avoiding one common mistake that many disabled workers make when returning to work after disability / medical leave. Recently, I have been running over and over into the same issue: an employer creates a leave policy which makes sense to them but is absolutely incompatible with the California laws on disability leave and FMLA/CFRA. For example, a typical employment policy in a handbook or employee manual might state that if an employee doe not report illness within 24 hours or if he doesn't provide medical certification within a day or two of taking time off, he will be considered terminated or he will be considered to have abandoned his job. This kind of policy is a mine field for an employer, as it ignores the basic obligations of the employer underr California Fair Employment and Housing Act which mandates that an employee must notify his employer of his condition/disability within reasonable time, without imposing specific restrictions. For obvious reasons due to certain circumstances, such as being hospitalized for instance, an employee might only be able to call or e-mail his employer directly or through his friends/relative (if the employee is unconscious or not mobile, for instance) and notify an employer of his condition without being able to provide medical paperwork within the time prescribed by the company policy. Terminating an employee, just because he didn't provide the medical certification documentation right on time virtually guarantees that the employer will be held liable for violation various disability laws, especially if the employer was put orally or otherwise on notice of the employee's medical condition, and if that employee had a serious illness or disability. If you are an employee in California who is or has become disabled as a result of work related injury or non-work related medical condition, it is important that you are aware of your three fundamental rights and your employer's obligations toward you: | 
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