Timothy M McDonald
Webster University: HRMG 5700 QA Spring II, 2015 Huber v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Case Summary
Pam Huber sustained a permanent injury that would not allow her to perform the essential functions of her position as an order filler. Huber asked for a reasonable accommodation in the form of taking a vacant position as a router. Both Huber and Wal-Mart agreed that the position was vacant and equivalent. Wal-Mart did not automatically assign Huber to the position instead allowing her to compete for the position within Wal-Mart’s bet qualified employee for the position policy. Ultimately Wal-Mart chose a different candidate for the router position and Huber was assigned a different position at a …show more content…
Midland Brake, Inc., 180 F.3d 1154, 1164-65 (10th Cir.1999) (en banc), stated:
[I]f the reassignment language merely requires employers to consider on an equal basis with all other applicants an otherwise qualified existing employee with a disability for reassignment to a vacant position, that language would add nothing to the obligation not to discriminate, and would thereby be redundant․
Thus, the reassignment obligation must mean something more than merely allowing a disabled person to compete equally with the rest of the world for a vacant position. (Thomson Reuters, 2007)
The Eighth district court stated in Huber that Wal-Mart was not required to do more than allow her to apply to an open position, allowing the most qualified person to be placed in the open position regardless of any accommodation needed.
I believe that as an accommodation Huber was qualified and should have been placed. The attitude and abilities to accomplish work on her own are performance issues and should be dealt with in that manner. The language of allow the accommodated person to apply for open positions just like anyone else seems like a big fat nothing, big woo you can apply just like anyone else. Why