Field Visits were Essential to Nursing Supervisor's Job During COVID-triggered Staff Shortages

What makes a job function 'essential?' 

FACTORS 

EXPLANATION 

The employer's judgment as to which functions are essential 

The ADA states that "consideration shall be given to the employer's judgment as to what functions of a job are essential." 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8). Accordingly, courts will consider the testimony of company officials that a particular function is an essential part of a job. 

In this, case the agency deemed the patient field visit-related functions of the job essential. 

The amount of time spent on the job performing the function 

Courts will weigh the percentage of time the worker actually spends performing the function. 

In this case, prior to the pandemic, the routine practice of the agency was that supervisors didn't make field visits. At least, the court stated, this was true between 2018 and the spring of 2020, prior to the pandemic. Up until that point, the supervisor rarely, if ever, actually performed such tasks, the court wrote.  This factor therefore cut against a finding that field visits were an essential job function. 

Written job descriptions prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job 

How the job is described in job postings.  

Here, the job description described performing field visits as an essential function, as well as a "Major Area of Responsibility." 

The consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function 

This factor considers, for example, would happen to the company, or its clients, if the worker did not perform the function.  

Here, staffing shortages posed acute problems for the agency's ability to meet its mission of administering care in patients' homes. The court noted that the supervisor acknowledged that a delay in providing care could have negative health consequences for a patient. "Little imagination is required to contemplate the real-world consequences of a healthcare provider failing to provide timely care to homebound patients in the early, uncertain months of the global pandemic," the court wrote. 

The terms of a collective bargaining agreement. 

The agreement, if one exists, may describe the job's essential functions.  

Here, there was no such agreement, so the factor was irrelevant. 

The work experience of past incumbents in the job 

Whether employees holding the same position in the past performed the function, and if so, for what percentage of time. 

In this case, supervisory staff rarely performed direct care patient visits before the pandemic. However, similarly situated employees were expected to perform such tasks when the pandemic's staffing shortage necessitated it. Moreover, employees in the clinical manager position received yearly competency training. That mandate, the court observed, signaled that field visits, though perhaps not regularly required by those serving as a clinical supervisor, were important enough features of the job that the company provided annual training on them. 

The current work experience of incumbents in similar jobs 

Whether the worker's colleagues in the same or similar job performed the function. 

Here, the court pointed out that other clinical supervisors did in fact perform field visits when the need arose in 2020.