1. Do you believe the employer made a good-faith effort to reasonably accommodate the employee?

2. Can you imagine other accommodations that may have been considered by the employer to be less disruptive to its three-minute punctuality requirement? From a relative perspective, do you agree with the court that fifteen minutes is a reasonable accommodation at the beginning of the work day and after lunch?

3. If increasing the number of special needs parking spaces would have allowed Demirelli to arrive at work on time, should the court have simply required that accommodation as an alternative? Cost was not discussed in this excerpted opinion; but do you think there should be a dollar limit on the price of a reasonable accommodation?

Issue: Is punctuality an essential job function? Should an employer be held liable for failing to accommodate an employee with a disability if the employer believes the accommodation request is unreasonable and unspecific? 

Facts: Demirelli, who uses a wheelchair due to a rare condition commonly known as brittle bone disease, was hired by Convergys as a call representative to answer telephone calls from customers of Convergys’ clients. To keep its call stations consistently attended, Convergys maintains a strict tardy policy and penalizes employees who are more than three minutes late to work or after lunch. Demirelli was penalized for repeatedly arriving late to work and returning late from lunch. The company, however, didn’t have assigned workstations, so employees had to find an open workstation when they arrived and when they returned from work. A jury found for the plaintiff, awarding Demirelli lost wages and compensatory damages. The district court denied Convergys's motions for judgment as a matter of law and Convergys appealed. 

Decision: The Eight Circuit held that Demirelli was not required to be more specific about the request for accommodation. Accordingly, the district court did not err by denying Convergys's motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court affirmed that punctuality is an essential job function and disagreed with Convergys’s claim that providing Demirelli with extra time was unreasonable and would have required Convergys to eliminate the essential punctuality requirement.