The Sixth Circuit revives a disability discrimination claim by a former cashier who abandoned her job after being denied the use of a stool to allow her to perform her duties without suffering severe pain.

The employee had a number of ailments that limited her ability to stand at her register, and proposed the use of a stool--an accommodation that her supervisors had let her use on prior occasions--but she was told by management that this was no longer acceptable, allegedly because other employees had complained about unfair treatment. During her last shift, she complained of severe pain and inquired whether she could have a stool delivered to the store. One of her managers refused and allegedly told she could finish her shift without a stool or she could get a doctor’s note that indicated that she needed a stool to perform her job. She chose to get a note from her doctor that same day which provided the stool as an accommodation. When she returned to work with the note and gave it to her manager, he allegedly refused to open the note. Although he indicated that he would schedule a meeting with the employee and the district manager to resolve the issue, she left the store without finishing her shift and did not return. The meeting with management never took place, despite the employee calling her manager, and she was subsequently terminated for job abandonment.

The Court says that the use of a stool may have been a reasonable accommodation; that the employee was able to adequately perform her job at the register with the use of a stool and that she did not require unlimited break; and that she was not offered an accommodation that would have allowed her to work her shift without pain. The Court concludes that a jury should decide whether she proposed a reasonable accommodation that would have allowed her to be “otherwise qualified” for the cashier position despite her disability. “Further, if a jury were to find that [the employee’s] requests, both written and oral, for a stool constituted a request for a reasonable accommodation, there is a remaining dispute of whether that accommodation would cause an undue hardship for the employer. The defendants have not set forth specific facts indisputably demonstrating that the use of a stool would have presented an undue hardship for the company,” the Court holds. Talley v. Family Dollar Stores