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Nevada ADA

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I’ve heard that under federal and Nevada law, employers must make “reasonable accommodations” for disabled employees. What does that mean?

Nevada, along with all other states in the U.S., has to abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, when it comes to dealing with workers with disabilities. Passed into law in 1990, the ADA makes it a requirement for employers to grant reasonable accommodations to any employee suffering from a disability.

Some people may wonder how to define exactly what a reasonable accommodation might be. The answer to this is not simple. Essentially, it depends upon the job, as well as each individual employer.

For example, in the majority of cases adding a wheelchair ramp to a building would constitute a reasonable accommodation. In any location where adding such a ramp would not impose a hardship, even small employers should be able to bear the cost of adding one, as it would probably cost less than $400.

Suppose, however, that an employer were renting office space on the fourth floor of an antiquarian building that does not have an elevator. The building is located in the midst of a crowded city, so there is no room to build a ramp. The employer would have to pay $20,000 at a minimum for an elevator to be installed, and making improvements to a building that he or she does not own would not likely be considered a reasonable accommodation. At some point the building would probably need to be renovated, and at that time the owner of the property would have to install an elevator for handicapped access to the building.

Before the Americans with Disabilities Act became a law in 1990, there were no regulations governing the actions of employers in terms of making reasonable accommodations for the disabled. Government agencies and private businesses were both accorded the right to design barriers that essentially made many places of business unreachable for disabled individuals. In fact, before the ADA was signed into law, curbs frequently prevented the disabled from being able to use certain facilities. JH