The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has ruled that a nurse’s asthma and obstructive lung disease are an employment disability for which reasonable accommodation must be made. The nurse in this case was told by her physician that walking outside in very cold weather between the residential cottages at the facility for developmentally disabled adults where she worked seriously aggravated her medical condition. Otherwise she was fully able to perform all of the required functions of her job as a registered nurse.

   The facility had sufficient staffing resources and was able to offer the nurse flexible use of medical leave when the weather was too cold for her. The nurse insisted on a position where she could work indoors all of the time.

   The court ruled the facility had made the most reasonable accommodation it could without suffering undue hardship. The employer did not have a position available at the time for a nurse in which the job description did not require walking outside from building to building in cold weather. The employer did not have to create a new indoor position or displace another employee from such a position to accommodate an employee with a disability.

   The employer would be required to inform the nurse when the type of position she wanted as reasonable accommodation, a full-time inside position, became available. She would be allowed to apply, but as a disabled employee seeking reasonable accommodation she did not have to be given a preference over other employees without disabilities who might have better qualifications or more seniority.