Connecticut Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Daniel Schwartz : Stamford, Hartford New Haven, CT

Last month, I reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to hear the case of Huber v. Wal-Mart, to decide whether disabled employees must be reassigned to a vacant position for which they are qualified or merely be permitted to apply for such a position.

Yesterday, however, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to dismiss the matter because the parties had reached a settlement. 

Multiple blogs have commented on it including the Ohio Employer's Law Blog, and SCOTUS Blog.  A few news articles also have provided coverage, including this blurb from Bloomberg, which indicated that the case settled on Friday for undisclosed and confidential terms.   

It's unfortunate that we won't have any guidance from the Supreme Court on this subject but I would expect the Court to find a case with similar facts to take up in the upcoming months.  (I would also expect other attorneys with similar cases to file their petitions with the court shortly.)  In the meantime, employers will be left to struggle with the question and risk second-guessing before we receive further guidance from the court.

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The U.S. Supreme Court this afternoon granted certiorari to an important question under the Americans with Disabilities Act, namely whether disabled employees must be reassigned to a vacant position for which they are qualified or merely be permitted to apply for such a position.

In Huber v. Walmart, the Eighth Circuit held for the employer in concluding that:

the ADA is not an affirmative action statute and does not require an employer to reassign a qualified disabled employee to a vacant position when such a reassignment would violate a legitimate nondiscriminatory policy of the employer to hire the most qualified candidate. ... Thus, the ADA does not require Wal-Mart to turn away a superior applicant for the router position in order to give the position to Huber. To conclude otherwise is “affirmative action with a vengeance. That is giving a job to someone solely on the basis of his status as a member of a statutorily protected group.” [citation omitted]

Here, Wal-Mart did not violate its duty, under the ADA, to provide a reasonable accommodation to Huber. Wal-Mart reasonably accommodated Huber’s disability by placing Huber in a maintenance associate position. The maintenance position may not have been a perfect substitute job, or the employee’s most preferred alternative job, but an employer is not required to provide a disabled employee with an accommodation that is ideal from the employee’s perspective, only an accommodation that is reasonable.

The SCOTUSBlog, as usual, has the particulars including the opinion below, the petition for certiorari and the brief in opposition. Expect more analysis to come.

UPDATE: Oral argument is likely to be held in March 2007, with a decision by the end of the term in June 2007.

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