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No Penalty for Over-Accommodating Employee

Paul Boyle worked as a heavy equipment operator for the City of Pell City. During the first year of his employment, he suffered an on-the-job injury that left him disabled. Unable to perform his job, the superintendent assigned him to office work. After several years, Mr. Boyle and the superintendent memorialized an agreement under which Mr. Boyle would perform the duties of the street superintendent foreman for two years. However, Mr. Boyle would remain at his original operator pay grade. The actual street superintendent foreman retained his foreman title and pay but worked as a mechanic.

That arrangement worked until the superintendent retired. The new superintendent was not interested in the arrangement. He assigned Mr. Boyle to work inventory; a physical job that Mr. Boyle could not perform because of his injury. Mr. Boyle asked to be returned to the foreman position but the superintendent wanted the original foreman, who still had the title and pay, to perform those duties. Mr. Boyle took disability retirement and sued under the Rehabilitation Act.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Boyle argued that the City had violated the Rehabilitation Act, which parallels the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), by failing to give him reasonable accommodation. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld summary judgment against Mr. Boyle. Like the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act does not impose a duty on employers to create a new position for a disabled employee or to reassign the employee to an already filled position. The foreman job was not vacant during Mr. Boyle’s employment. The City was not required to remove the foreman from his position or to promote Mr. Boyle as an accommodation of his disability. In providing a greater accommodation to Mr. Boyle than what was required initially, the City was under no legal obligation to continue doing so.