
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
broadly
requires that business owners and employers allow qualified service animals in
spaces accessible to the public. Under the ADA, only dogs and miniature horses can
be qualified service animals and, to be qualified, the animal must be trained
to perform tasks directly related to the owner’s disability. Under the ADA, business
owners and employers must allow service animals in their publicly accessible
business spaces if the following limited criteria are satisfied: the animal is trained,
provides disability-related assistance, and is harnessed, leashed, or tethered
or the animal’s handler can otherwise maintain control of the animal through
voice, signal, or other effective controls. Business owners and employers are
limited in what information they can require about the need for the animal or the
services the animal performs. A business owner or employer may only inquire,
where the need for the animal is not obvious, if the animal is required for a
disability and what work or task the animal is trained to perform.
In contrast, employers who are faced
with deciding whether to allow animals in their nonpublic workspaces based on
an employee’s medical needs must work through the ADA’s interactive process to
determine if (i) the employee requesting the animal has a “disability” and a
disability-related need for the animal and (ii) if the employer can reasonably
accommodate the presence of the animal or if this would be an undue hardship.
As part of the interactive process, the employer can seek limited medical
provider input to make these determinations. Moreover, while the threshold to
prove an undue burden is high, an employer can consider the impact of the
animal on others in the workspace in determining if the animal can be
reasonably accommodated and whether alternative accommodations would be equally
effective.
Employers should not, however, assume
that a requested animal will pose undue hardships. For example, another
employee’s allergies may not be a basis to deny an animal as an undue hardship
if an employer can relocate employees in the workspace to accommodate both
employee’s medical situations. Some courts have found, however, that an
employer can deny an animal request where multiple employees’ allergies to a
service animal in a small, shared workspace did, in fact, create an
insurmountable undue burden on the employer.
Employers should stay tuned to the trajectory
of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s proposed rule, as it may foreshadow
how other agencies or courts may eventually view employer accommodation or
undue hardship considerations.
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