Was Putting Pest Tech on Unpaid Leave a ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ for Injured Knee?

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An employer generally has discretion to choose among reasonable accommodations for purposes of ADA compliance. A case involving a Maryland pest control technician for Orkin addresses the question of whether putting an employee on unpaid leave, when he could do other jobs at the company, can be a reasonable response.

The technician’s knee was bugging him after he injured it in 2016. His doctor examined him and restricted him to light duty. That meant he could not do the heavy lifting, bending, crawling and other activities that were part of the job.

Even though there were several positions available at the company that he could have done, like being a sales representative or customer services representative, the company instead responded by placing him on unpaid leave. 

The tech sued the company for failing to reasonably accommodate him. He asked the court to reinstate him, and order Orkin to give him back pay, money damages, and attorney’s fees.

Orkin responded that it did reasonably accommodate him.

To establish a failure to accommodate claim under the ADA, an employee must show that:

1. He had a disability; 
2. The employer knew of his disability; 
3. A reasonable accommodation would permit to perform his job; and 
4. The employer refused to make the accommodation.

The ADA provides that a "reasonable accommodation" may include job restructuring, modified work schedules, and “other similar accommodations.”

Did Orkin fail to provide employees with reasonable accommodation?

A. No. Putting him on leave with no pay was reasonable.

B. Yes. It could have just given him a job that didn’t require physically demanding tasks until he was better.

If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Dieng v. Orkin LLC, No. 21-cv-0482-LKG (D. Maryland 02/94/25), which held that the company reasonably accommodated the pest technician by permitting him to take unpaid leave for several months.

The court noted that in the Fourth Circuit (Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia), unpaid leave can be a reasonable accommodation where the disability is temporary and a leave of absence could enable the employee to recover and return to work.

The court rejected the employee’s assertion that providing unpaid leave was not reasonable because Orkin was obligated to reassign him to another position that would allow for light duty work. It pointed out that the employer has ultimate discretion to choose among reasonable accommodations.

Further, “as the Fourth Circuit has observed, reassignment can be a reasonable accommodation under the ADA, but it is an accommodation of last resort,’” the court wrote.

Because Orkin reasonably accommodated him, the pest tech could not establish a failure to accommodate claim.

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