Service Dog Was Not a Reasonable Accommodation for Hospital Worker

Takeaway: Employers must accommodate most requests from disabled employees to have a service animal accompany them at work. However, when the service animal creates a direct threat to the health or safety of others, this may not be a reasonable accommodation.

Relocating allergic patients wouldn’t have been a reasonable accommodation for a hospital employee requesting to have a service animal accompany her to work, according to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the fall of 2020, the plaintiff completed a clinical rotation at Hurley Medical Center as part of her education as a nursing student at University of Michigan-Flint. Although student nurses on the rotation were assigned to two floors, 7 East (7E) and 9 East (9E), the plaintiff could work only on 7E, the floor on which her UM-Flint faculty supervisor worked.

Before beginning the rotation, the plaintiff requested that her service dog, Pistol, be permitted to accompany her on rotation to assist with her panic disorder. For panic attacks, she took the medication Ativan, which takes five to 10 minutes to become effective. Without this medication, the attacks could last over an hour, causing her shortness of breath and chest tightness, and the feeling that she was going to die.

The plaintiff trained Pistol, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, to recognize her symptoms just before panic attacks so she could take Ativan promptly. Without Pistol, the plaintiff could be on her way to a full panic attack by the time she recognized her symptoms.

Hurley allowed Pistol in the hospital under its written policy pertaining to service animals. This policy stated that every attempt would be made to allow handlers to keep service animals, except in sterile areas where a patient is immunosuppressed or in isolation, such as operating rooms.

On the first day that the plaintiff brought Pistol to the hospital, one staff member and one patient reported experiencing allergic reactions. The staff member, a unit clerk, left work and obtained medical treatment for a severe allergic reaction from dog allergies, returning two days later. The nurse manager had to find a replacement on short notice, assigning an assistant nursing manager to the position.

A patient also began to have an allergic reaction and asked whether there was a dog on 7E. Another nurse was rescheduled from 7E for the duration of the plaintiff’s rotation due to dog allergies. Hurley believed individuals on 9E also had dog allergies.

After this incident, Hurley began to re-evaluate the plaintiff’s ability to have Pistol accompany her. The plaintiff offered to have Pistol wear a Shed Defender, a type of body suit that covers dogs and minimizes the spread of allergens. However, the company that made them told her that the suit would not fit Pistol’s breed. The plaintiff told Hurley that she was looking into other options, including seeing if her mother could alter the Shed Defender to fit Pistol, but failed to follow up about this.

Hurley concluded that the only reasonable accommodation would be to keep Pistol in a crate on another floor and to give the plaintiff breaks to visit Pistol. The plaintiff stated that this offer would not help her detect panic attacks. Hurley said that permitting Pistol to accompany her would create an unreasonably high probability of harm to patient care. The plaintiff finished her rotation at Hurley without Pistol accompanying her and without experiencing a panic attack.

The plaintiff sued Hurley under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The district court granted summary judgment for Hurley, finding that the dog created a direct threat to the health and safety of patients and staff. The plaintiff appealed.

The 6th Circuit reviewed U.S. Department of Justice regulations describing how service animals should be accommodated under the ADA. The regulations generally require that service animals be permitted in publicly accessible areas of public entities, but then provide a defense to this accommodation if the animal’s presence poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others.

The regulations acknowledge that service animals may be permitted in public areas of hospitals and excluded from sterile areas. The hospital provided a certain type of kidney dialysis on 7E and thus many of the patients on that floor were immunocompromised. The plaintiff argued that the hospital could have relocated allergic patients or moved her to floor 9E. The 6th Circuit found, however, that these proposed accommodations were unreasonable.

The hospital was filled with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult to move allergic patients and their staff. In addition, a Hurley administrator testified that there were dog allergies on 9E.

As a result, the 6th Circuit upheld the decision of the district court dismissing the plaintiff’s case.

Bennett v. Hurley Medical Center, 6th Cir., No. 23-1162 (Nov. 9, 2023).

Jeffrey Rhodes is an attorney with McInroy, Rigby & Rhodes LLP in Arlington, Va.