<span style="font-size: 85%;">We get it – lawyers are expensive. This recurring series seeks to help employers and employees in deciding whether calling your lawyer in a certain situation is unnecessary, is dependent on your risk tolerance, or is an absolute must.</span>

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As an employer, sometimes you have to play the long game when an employee comes to you seeking an accommodation.

Take Cutting Edge Supply, a California-based construction supply company, for example. According to the EEOC in a press release last month, Cutting Edge employed a worker with diabetes. Said worker requested snack breaks periodically to regulate his blood sugar levels, and Cutting Edge refused to provide such. The employee eventually was terminated.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of the few employment laws that imposes upon employers an affirmative duty (rather than the typical prohibitions against discrimination and retaliation): employers are obligated to reasonably accommodate a qualified individual with a disability, provided such accommodation does not create an undue hardship. In English (rather than legalese), this means that an employer must provide assistance to employees with health problems to allow them to do their jobs, so long as doing is not prohibitively burdensome.

How long and how often does it take for an employee to eat a quick snack and check their blood sugar? Presumably the employee already was doing so during their lunch break, so perhaps 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon? Twenty minutes per day may feel substantial for an employer with tight margins. However, when the alternative is a lawsuit and settlement for $150,000 (besides what Cutting Edge paid for its own attorney), all of a sudden those 20 minutes a day may seem like a good deal.

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