A Lesson from the Court: the Importance of Requesting Accommodation to a Disability

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.