Extended medical leave is challenging for California businesses to navigate, especially when there is no clear return to work date. California and federal law state that extended leave is sometimes necessary as a reasonable accommodation, but what if an employee repeatedly requests additional time off with no end in sight? Are businesses indefinitely at the mercy of the employee’s healthcare provider’s continuous work restriction extensions? The California Court of Appeal recently addressed this issue in the unpublished opinion in Manos v. J Paul Getty Trust, reaffirming that California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) does not require employees to grant indefinite leave as an accommodation.
Reasonable Accommodation Requirements
When employees exhaust their medical leave—whether taken under the California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”), the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), or some other protected basis—employers must evaluate whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) or FEHA require employers to provide additional accommodations to facilitate recuperation and the return to work. These accommodations can take many forms, including modifying job duties, changing an employee’s work schedule, or providing additional unpaid leave, to name a few. When an employee requests a disability accommodation, the employer must engage in a good faith interactive process to identify reasonable accommodations.
When Is an Accommodation Not Required?
Employers sometimes find themselves in a challenging situation if the employee requests successive and lengthy extensions of their leave, at times extending more than a year, without estimating a return date. FEHA regulations provide that extending leave “may be a reasonable accommodation provided that the leave is likely to be effective in allowing the employee to return to work at the end of the leave . . . and does not create an undue hardship for the employer . . . An employer, however, is not required to provide an indefinite leave of absence as a reasonable accommodation.” Cal. Code Regs., tit. 2, § 11068. The difficulty often lies in determining whether the leave “is likely to be effective,” poses an undue hardship, or becomes “indefinite” based upon seemingly never-ending requests for extension.
Additionally, what may be “reasonable” for one employer may not be “reasonable” for others based upon certain factors, such as the size of the employer, the nature of the accommodation, and the resources available to the employer. Regarding extended leave, courts—like the Court of Appeal in Manos v. J Paul Getty Trust—recognize that employers are not required to provide “indefinite” leave.
Manos v. J Paul Getty Trust
In Manos v. J Paul Getty Trust, the defendant employer, the Getty, hired plaintiff employee, George Manos as an HVAC technician. In June 2019, Manos requested an “indefinite” leave of absence after fracturing his leg. A doctor certified that Manos could not perform any work and estimated that Manos might be able to return to work five months later in November 2019. The Getty therefore placed Manos on medical leave and near the end of Manos’s 12-week protected leave, advised that it would provide additional, unprotected leave up to early December 2019 as a reasonable accommodation.
While on extended leave, Manos submitted a second leave request, which again sought “indefinite” leave, and his doctor estimated that Manos could return to work in January 2020. In response, the Getty placed Manos on unpaid, “inactive” status and indicated that Manos’s employment would end if he did not return to work within 90 days of being placed on inactive status.
Despite the Getty’s 90-day notice, Manos submitted a third medical leave request in January 2020. Unlike his other requests, this time Manos provided a date certain for his return of April 30, 2020. Manos’s doctor similarly estimated that Manos could return to work around that time. In anticipation of Manos’s return, the Getty asked Manos to list any accommodations he required to return to his job duties in April.
However, in early April 2020, Manos submitted a fourth medical leave request for “indefinite” leave, though his doctor estimated he could return to work at the end of July 2020. In response, the Getty asked Manos to complete an interactive process questionnaire detailing his requested accommodations. Critically, Manos indicated on the form that he was not requesting an accommodation and instead checked the box requesting continuous leave with an “unknown” end date. For his doctor’s part, Manos’s physician indicated that he expected Manos’s disability was temporary, but estimated it would be 12-18 months before Manos might return.
Given that Manos did not provide any date certain for his return, in conjunction with Manos’s doctor indicating that Manos might return after 12 to 18 months, the Getty terminated Manos’s employment because the questionnaire indicated Manos would not be able to return to work in the “foreseeable future.” Manos sued the Getty for, among other claims, failure to accommodate Manos’s disability and failure to engage in the interactive process in violation of FEHA. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Getty and the Court of Appeal affirmed.
The Court of Appeal determined that the Getty reasonably accommodated Manos for more than a year after his injury and lawfully ended Getty’s employment based on evidence that Manos could not return to work in the foreseeable future. The court cited multiple authorities acknowledging that an employer “is not obligated . . . to hold open a position indefinitely . . .” and that “a finite Ieave of absence may be a reasonable accommodation,” and that an employer is not required to “wait indefinitely . . .” Manos rebuffed any accommodations other than leave and expressed that he was requesting only “continuous leave.” Under these circumstances, the court concluded that no reasonable juror could find that the Getty failed to accommodate Manos or failed to engage in the interactive process with him.
Takeaways
While the Manos case is an encouraging reminder that employers need not grant indefinite leave to employees, it is critical to keep in mind that the employee provided no date certain for his return after successive extensions. This is because case law, such as the 2021 case, Zamora v. Security Industry Specialists, Inc. (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 1, have highlighted that “‘…the mere fact that a medical leave has been repeatedly extended does not necessarily establish that it would continue indefinitely.’ [citation.].” It is, therefore, important for employers facing successive requests for leave to be prepared to demonstrate that the employee could not return to work in the near future or was precluded from returning to his or her regular job.
