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New Hampshire ADA

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

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, offering protection for disabled individuals not only in the state of New Hampshire, but throughout the entire United States, as well. The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law that makes employers provide reasonable accommodations for employees who have disabilities. Defining what constitutes a reasonable accommodation is not a simple task. It depends upon individual circumstances at different jobs, and with different employers. Below are a couple of examples that may help to provide a bit of explanation.

For most employers, adding a wheelchair ramp would be considered a reasonable accommodation. The cost of these ramps is generally about $400. As long as there is sufficient room available to build a ramp, even the smallest of employers should be able to absorb this cost without a problem.

What about an employer located on the third floor of an old office building in the middle of an overcrowded city? The building has no elevator, and there is no room to construct a ramp. Elevator installation would cost approximately $20,000. Such a cost would likely not be considered as reasonable, particularly since the employer does not even own the building. Once the building is renovated, however, the owner would have to install an elevator, even if there were no disabled persons working in the building at that time.

There are many organizations that employ salespeople to drive their personal cars to keep appointments with clients or customers. Those salespeople then get reimbursed for their mileage. If one of those workers had epilepsy, however, he or she might not be physically able to drive a car.

A reasonable accommodation would be to let that person take cabs or buses to go to appointments, and then reimburse him or her for those particular costs. If that employee requested a limousine and personal driver to escort him or her around, that would not be considered a reasonable accommodation. JH