A middle school teacher who was injured after she had a hypoglycemic event in front of her students as a result of low blood sugar levels, which she claimed occurred because the school failed to accommodate her disability (diabetes) by permitting her to have an earlier lunch period, appealed the trial court's order granting her employer summary judgment. The trial court had granted the school summary judgment on the basis that because she had not suffered an adverse employment action, she was unable to establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate.
The Appellate Division reversed, finding that it is not necessary for a plaintiff claiming a failure to accommodate under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) to prove that she suffered an adverse employment action. As a result of her hypoglycemic event, the plaintiff fell and struck her head 8 and face on a lab table and the floor, causing excessive bleeding and requiring her to go to the hospital. The plaintiff suffered several severe and permanent damages, including, but not limited to, total loss of smell and taste, dental and facial trauma, tinnitus, insomnia, tingling in her fingers, altered speech, neck and shoulder pain, vertigo, emotional distress, and decreased life expectancy. The Appellate Division based its decision on a previous New Jersey Supreme Court case which stressed that although an adverse action is generally recognized as a required element for a prima facie case, "identifying the elements of the prima facie case that are unique to the particular discrimination claim is critical to its evaluation." That same case also made clear that, although unnecessary to be decided in that case, plaintiffs who suffered a failure to accommodate should be permitted to proceed, even if no adverse action could be proven, noting that such cases would be rare since typically an employee unable to secure an accommodation will suffer an adverse employment action. Ten years later, the state Supreme Court laid out the necessary elements of a prima facie case for a failure to accommodate and did not specifically include a requirement to prove an adverse action occurred. Based on these two New Jersey Supreme Court cases, the Appellate Division held that an adverse action was not necessary since "the employee could demonstrate that the failure to accommodate forced the employee to soldier on without a reasonable accommodation," and the specific circumstances "cry out for a remedy."
The Appellate Division also held that the New Jersey Workers' Compensation Act does not bar the plaintiff's bodily injury claim as a result of her fall, but did hold that any damages resulting from her bodily injury should be mitigated by any workers' compensation pay she received from the injury. The Appellate Division found that since the workers' compensation law does have an exception for intentional wrongdoing, and the employee alleges that her supervisor intentionally refused her request for an accommodation, which was substantially certain to lead to a hypoglycemic event that could cause injury, it was possible for the jury to conclude that this was an intentional wrong.
As a result, employers should make sure that they are engaging in the interactive process with employees and, as a best practice, such interactive process should be documented, so, if necessary, an employer can easily prove that they have engaged in an interactive process. It's possible that this holding may result in additional failure to accommodate claims, particularly for employees who remain employed, so employers should not assume that just because an employee continues to work they are safe from a claim.
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