As expansive as disability rights of California workers are, the right of qualifying disabled employees of California State agencies are even more broad that those of private sector employees. This is illustrated by the precedent decision of the State Personnel Board No. 00-07. In that case, the Board considered whether the employee of the DMV was properly medically terminated pursuant to Cal. Government Code section 19253.5. The employee in question was diagnosed with repetitive motion injury in her wrist, including tendinitis and cumulative trauma (carpal tunnel syndrome). She was subsequently placed on a temporary modified duty assignment, where she did not have to type as much as she would normally have to. After denying several accommodations requested by the employee, including the request to convert her temporary assignment into a permanent position, DMV presented her with an “options letter” stating that she would either have to return to work to full duty, voluntary resign, take disability retire, or be medically terminated. Eventually, DMV ended up medically terminating the claimant.
The SPB held, as expected, that DMV was not required under the law to convert a temporary position into a permanent position (similarly to FEHA/ADA provision that states that the employer does not have to create a new position for an employee). However, the SPB also held that DMV failed to prove that the claimant could not perform the work of any other position in the DMV, and therefore her medical termination was improper. The termination was therefore revoked, and the claimant was awarded all back pay with benefits and interest in addition to being reinstated to State service.
The above ruling is based on California Gov. Code section 19253.5(d), which states that in order for a state agency to medically terminate an employee, the agency must prove that the employee is medically unable to perform in any position in the agency for which the employee meets the minimum qualifications. In order to meet this burden, an employer – State agency – must show, before terminating an employee, that it reviewed all the vacant positions in the agency into which the employee could conceivably have been demoted or transferred to as an accommodation to his disability, and it determined that employee either did not meet the minimum qualifications or was medically unable to perform in those positions.