Good morning and thank you to everyone who has joined us for this call today. Welcome to the ADA distance learning 2003 session titled "Ask the EEOC." this is our regularly scheduled January session. Just as a note, we have an additional session in January scheduled due to a need to reschedule our December session, so on January 28th, 2003, we will have a session titled "Creating Access to Temporary Events" which will be held one week from today at the same time. Those interested in registering for that event should contact their Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center or you can get further information online at www.adagreatlakes.org. This session will feature issues related to accessibility and temporary events and will feature Rex Pace, who is the co-author of "A Guide to Creating Access to Temporary Events". This session today, "Ask the EEOC" takes us into a different type of session than we have previously held. This session is primarily be a question and answer session. That means you, the participants, are going to drive what happens today. This is a disconnect from previous sessions where we have traditionally had a formal presentation from our speaker who has then entertained questions at the end. Many of our participants in the past have indicated that they wanted more opportunity and more time to ask questions that were not specific to any one topic of some of our major presenters. One of those being presenters from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We are hopeful that this session today will allow you, the participants, an opportunity to get your questions answered, no matter what the topic they may be. We do ask that you keep it to the issues related to Title I and the ADA. We are moderating this session to assure that everyone has an opportunity to ask their questions. We ask you to minimize the questions that you would ask that would be specific about an individual case that you yourself may be involved in directly. Our speaker would not be able to give you advice on that issue. We''d like the questions to be related specifically to more broad issues that may be concerns or more broad topics and areas that you may have related to the interpretations that have been made by the EEOC in relationship to the ADA or questions that might be in the regulations or other documents. Today we have with us and it is our pleasure to have with us Sharon Rennert, who is the senior attorney and acting head of the ADA division of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Sharon has joined us many times as a speaker on various topics under the ADA and the employment provisions. She has been well received by many of you and has been a wealth of information about the law and has helped us understand better what we need to do as individuals in the community related to our responsibilities under the employment provisions. I''m going to turn the agenda over to Sharon to say a few words before we begin the question and answer period. Just a reminder that you are strongly encouraged to ask your questions, to ask for clarification as we go along and that this session will be primarily driven by you, the individuals. Those of you who would wish to join us by using the text real-time captioning online, you can do so now by going online to www.adagreatlakes.org and follow the links to the real-time text captioning. This would also allow you to save a transcript of today''s session through that process. Please note that both an audio version as well as a transcript version will be available to everyone within approximately one week following this session. The transcript will be posted to our website as well as the audio file so that you may relisten to this session time and time again if you choose. More information will be available to you on ADA Great Lakes website if you choose to do this. At this time, I will turn over the microphone to Sharon.
Thank you, Robin. Hello to the hundreds of people I am told are out there. I am taking that on faith. When robin says that this will be available, the tape, to listen to as many times as you''d like, I hope it is not that you will be relistening to it because you are having trouble falling asleep and you think this will be a good aid to help you get a good night''s sleep. I''m really looking forward to it. I want to get to your questions just as quickly as we can here. The only thing that I want to say as a way of introduction, I think, here at the EEOC in terms of ADA we are as ever focused on what is happening in the courts, the types of litigation that we want to be bringing into the court, issues that we think are critical issues, issues in which we want courts to be aware of the commission''s position. We are still dealing with the fallout from last year''s three Supreme Court decisions on the ADA. And very much monitoring what the courts are doing with those decisions. Again, our own litigation program, cases we are bringing to kind of reinforce the things we liked in the Supreme Court decisions or maybe to kind of test the waters a little bit. Probably the Supreme Court decision in Toyota, the one dealing with performing manual tasks has probably been most used by courts, has come up more often in terms of trying to get a read on what the courts are doing. And some of the courts we think are following what the Supreme Court laid down and we have no problem with it, but we have seen some disturbing trends and EEOC is trying to step in, putting in amicus briefs to appeals courts. Amicus simply means friend of the court and it is just where we want to lay our position out in these cases. But some of the lower courts with the Toyota decision have tried to expand this concept the Supreme Court laid down of major life activities being activities of central importance to most people''s daily lives of kind of doing a whole new assessment of major life activities that everybody has accepted as being major. Walking and talking, hearing, speaking, things that nobody, you know, questioned anymore and yet we have noticed some courts think they have to sort of reopen that so the EEOC has been getting involved in those cases to say no, no, no, that is a misreading of the Toyota decision. So, you know, we are kind of monitoring what is going to happen but that is to be expected. Any time the Supreme Court issues a ruling, it is going to take a year, two years, even three years to really see how it plays out in the lower courts. So that continues to be a big focus for us. With that as my kind of introduction, Robin, I''d love to open the phones and get the questions going.
Great. We will now ask Jennifer to assist us with the question and answer and give you as participant''s instructions on how to go ahead and get started.
Well, we didn''t queue either but I will ask a question. In terms of the EEOC''s stance on personal services in the employment arena, what is the EEOC''s opinion in terms of what employers should provide or not provide? Under the law.
Okay. In terms of personal services, and just so that we are all using the same definition, the definition that we have been tending to use of what we include under a heading of personal services would be where someone, say, needs assistance with hygiene, with eating, maybe they need assistance getting in and out of their car if they drive to work, say. These kinds of things the EEOC believes are not, are not the responsibility of the employer. In other words, it would not be a form of reasonable accommodation for an employer to provide the means for somebody who has trouble eating on his own or somebody who would need help with personal hygiene issues or help getting in and out of a car. The reason the EEOC does not believe that any of this would fall under the reasonable accommodation obligation is that these are all matters that arise not only in a workplace, but more importantly outside the workplace. These are real issues, we understand that, but the idea behind reasonable accommodation is that there is something the employer has done, some barrier, you know, that the employer has set up, not intentionally in most cases, but some barrier that the employer has created, has control over, and, therefore, that is why there is an obligation on the employer to provide a reasonable accommodation to remove that barrier. Limitations, difficulties in personal hygiene, in eating, those are things that the employer has no control over. That is not something that the employer created. It is a reality that comes from different disabilities. And so, therefore, the employer does not have the obligation, say, to provide a personal attendant or to make available other employees to help with these situations. What the EEOC has said is that if an individual with a disability has a personal attendant, it would be a form of reasonable accommodation to allow that individual into the workplace so that the personal attendant who has been hired by the individual with the disability, the personal attendant can accompany them or come on site to provide the necessary services. The one time that EEOC has noted a greater obligation on the employer in the area of personal attendants and these kinds of services is when a person has to go to know a business trip. There the employer is now involved in sort of setting up a barrier, if you will, that the employer is saying to the person you have to take this business trip and so that kind of upsets the normal events of, you know, I work nine to five and then I get to go home. So when a person is on business travel, now there is potentially an obligation on the employer. Now, how that obligation is satisfied can be done in a number of ways. It may be that if someone has a personal attendant on retainer, then it is about having that person accompany him or her. You pick up the bill so that person can fly or drive with the person, stay in the same hotel room but you will pick up the meals. On the other hand it is also possible that the employer might arrange for attendant care services in the city to which the person is going. So as always with reasonable accommodations, the interactive process, that in that kind of business travel situation, the employee needing to spell out what his or her needs are, why they may prefer something or need something as opposed to another option that the employer might put forth, but the importance of the interactive process and the obligation on the employer to provide what is effective. What will effectively meet the needs of the individual? Does that answer the question?
Yes. We have one other question if we are allowed.
Sure, go ahead.
It is a follow-up. I have heard people also use the explanation that the personal services are not truly related to the job product or the job description. Is that a reasonable way to also explain it?
Not necessarily because an area where people are entitled to reasonable accommodation are the benefits of employment. The benefits and privileges of employment. So, for example, training programs, the company cafeteria, if there is a company gymnasium, these kinds of things are not directly related to anybody''s job either. I mean one can perform a job without having to get access to the cafeteria or the gym, those kinds of things. Nonetheless, the ADA itself in the statute specifically identifies benefits and privileges of employment as one aspect where there would be an obligation on employers. So we have to be careful about saying, you know, because it is not directly related to the job. That has never been the EEOC interpretation of why attendant cares services-again, benefits and privileges, those are set up by employers. So, again, to the extent that there is a couple of steps into that cafeteria, the employer didn''t necessarily do that deliberately to keep people with mobility limitations out, but nonetheless the employer creates the barrier, hence the obligation. The employer is providing a service to employees, it has to make sure that service is accessible to all employees, including those with disabilities.
Sharon, one of the things that we often get questions that comes across in regards to this issue is especially when they are looking at personal care assistance for travel purposes. The issue of paying the salary for the personal assistant. For example, often an argument the individual will be paying the salary of that person anyway for providing the hours, should they not be still paying for those hours even though they are now traveling from, you know, one coast to the other or something of that nature. How would that whole issue of responsibility for the hours, the salary, the pay, et cetera, play into the whole issue of a potential accommodation for the need for someone because of a travel purpose that might be essential to the job?
Where an employee has in effect on retainer, they have hired, they have contracted with an attendant and it is on a regular basis and so here is the weekly salary or the monthly salary and so now suddenly there is a business trip and the attendant is going to be traveling, in that circumstance the employer would not have an obligation to pay the salary because that has already being taken care of. I mean whether the person was going on business travel or staying home, the person has already committed to the salary for the services that will be rendered here. So the only thing that the individual would not otherwise have to do, if it weren''t for the business travel, is plane fare or train fare or the costs associated with getting in the car. Hotel, meals. Those are all things that if the person wasn''t on business travel, the employee would be in his or her home and that is where the attendant would be going. So it is really about the costs of the travel that potentially will be picked up by the employer. If that is the option of somebody who has already got an attendant and they are bringing them with. But where somebody is already getting a salary through the employee and they are going to get that salary whether there is a business trip or not, that would not be part of the employer''s obligation in making an accommodation.
I guess where the question comes in that we hear more often is it is not the contracted for time but let us say I contract for two hours but obviously travel there is a lot more time involved with that because now that person may be, you know, an additional four hours of travel, may be overnight, you know, or they may come in for two hours in the evening and now two hours in the morning and now you are talking about taking it to 24 to 48 hours situation.
When you are talking about over and above what would be happening if the employee stayed home, that is what you are putting into the reasonable accommodation obligation. So, Robin, in your example where it might only be two hours but with the travel that person, it is the time traveling, even if they are not being an attendant as well as providing perhaps additional services because now they might have to help with packing and unpacking which normally wouldn''t be done, so, yes, I mean in terms of documenting the extra hours that go along with it, and that is where some employers ask, well, instead of all of that, can we arrange for attendant care services in the city where the individual is going. So rather than bringing a person. And this kind of thing, you know, when EEOC talks to employers about this, what we say is really engage in this interactive process because often people have good reasons, certainly reasons they think are very important reasons for wanting to take the person they know. I mean in terms of qualifications. I mean it is not about any person can suddenly step in and help somebody out of a wheelchair, help with hygiene, help with dressing. You know, we tell employers think about liability issues, that you want to make sure it is a qualified person because if it is a stranger that the employer has arranged for and something happens, then suddenly there is all kinds of costs involved. So not that we are telling employers don''t explore the option of hiring an attendant at the city that the employee will be visiting, but again, talk to the employee. If the employee is comfortable with that, who are you going to get, how are you going to arrange for the services, somebody that everyone feels is reputable, comfortable with, you know, and to fully explore. And where employees have very definite ideas of what they want, to really explain to the employer, not just here is what I want, but why. Why is this important? And on both sides listen to each other and flexibility. As always, I mean, these can be very touchy discussions, but when EEOC gets involved, you know, we are trying to sort of tell both sides really listen to each other, what each side has to say, and as much flexibility as each side can have and not kind of dig in your heels and say, no, I only want what I want because then it gets very messy and complicated. So however much flexibility would be wonderful.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Well, we didn''t press in, but we will ask a question.
We must be having a problem somewhere along the line with the queuing and such, but go ahead.
Maybe it is the people who aren''t pressing. Those are the lines to pick up.
Go ahead.
Okay. I''ve been working with an employer who has an employee that is hard of hearing that works at a day care center. The employee has decided to not use their hearing aids when they are on the playground with the children and the employer would like to make that a requirement. Can the employer do that?
Not really. I mean almost kind of as a practical matter it becomes very hard to sort of order people to use personal use items, like hearing aids or order people to use a cane or a walker or to take medication. It probably presents some legal problems too, but as a practical matter you really can''t force somebody to do something like this. I think, you know, you said you are working with the employer. Obviously I don''t know everything that is gone on in terms of the-first of all, I don''t know how bad the hearing loss is, I don''t know what the discussions have been in terms of the employer''s concerns about not wearing a hearing aid, the reasons that the individual would prefer not to wear a hearing aid. Has there been any incident on the playground, and if so what has happened. Not necessarily that you have to wait for an incident to happen, but what is it that the employer is concerned about? Is it that this person can''t hear a specific child if there is so much noise and so can''t pick that out or couldn''t hear anything? Not just a specific child but maybe a number of children suddenly run into trouble and if they are not looking directly at those kids, again, this kind of goes back to the degree of the hearing loss. So I mean certainly I would want the employer and employee to fully be discussing, the employer all the concerns that it has very specifically about this and then what other alternative there might be besides the use of a hearing aid. I mean are there other teachers or other adults who are on the playground with the children or is it just this individual. I mean clearly the area of ADA we are getting into, I assume, is going to be direct threat, that a concern that if the individual doesn''t pick up that the child may be in trouble, that a child could injure him or herself. I assume that is where the employer''s concern lies. But I can''t tell just over the phone, you know, is that real, you know, kind of there is really something behind that concern, is it a pretty speculative kind of concern, so I think in terms of a lot more detail. So if the discussions haven''t gone into that level of detail, then that is certainly where I would want to take it.
Does that answer your question?
Okay, yes, because it was primarily the safety issue that the employer had a concern about. But nothing had happened to indicate that there was a problem.
Then I think, you know, as I said, we don''t want a serious injury for the child. ADA wouldn''t require that to happen. But, again, sometimes our concerns, and they are natural concerns and especially around children, schools, day cares have a heightened legal responsibility precisely because of the age and vulnerability of the children. So it is understandable why the provider would be raising this, but then with ADA there is the direct threat test. And to really kind of apply those factors. Let us be very specific what kinds of things you are worried about happening to the kids, how real is it, as I said how many other adults are on the playground with the children, what kind of hearing does this person have, if any. So there may be other alternatives besides the hearing aid because ultimately what the employer would have to determine is if they really think there is a direct threat and there is no accommodation to address it, then you are talking about the qualifications of this person, you know, as to whether this person is qualified to be in this job. The other thing is whether this is an essential function of the job. If primarily the essential function is the indoor activities and monitoring the playground were a marginal function, well, then that changes the equation too. So, you know, with ADA we always have all of these pieces and it is about, you know, focusing in one by one on the pieces and then sort of getting to build the picture, putting it all together at the end.
Thank you. Next question, please. Go ahead.
I had two questions actually. One was whose responsibility is it to pay for a reasonable accommodation when the individual involved is a client of vocational rehabilitation?
Well, I think the first thing is what as a client of vocational rehabilitation would the person be entitled to get from voc rehab? I mean if there are certain services or items that voc rehab would be paying for, then, you know, can they go ahead and do that and pay for it and then that is one less thing for the employer to have to think about. Depending also on what it is, there may be certain things. For example, if voc rehab were going to provide something like a wheelchair or a hearing aid, if voc rehab decided not to pay for those items, the employer would have no obligation to pay for those because those are not considered forms of reasonable accommodation. But if there are types of accommodations and voc rehab for whatever reason isn''t going to pick it up but if it is a form of reasonable accommodation and there is no undue hardship on the employer, then the employer would have to pick it up. I''m not sure if your question is kind of raising a situation where two entities may have obligations and we run into this not infrequently with the ADA. We have had it where Title I, the employment provisions, and Title III public accommodations that sometimes say, you know, training that is falling under Title III of the ADA and, therefore, there is obligations to provide materials in accessible formats or to perhaps have a sign language interpreter available and the employer wants to send an employee with a disability to one of these training programs. Well, the employer still has reasonable accommodation obligations. So there may be overlapping obligations. And what EEOC has always said in the overlapping obligations is that the employer always, 100%, has a requirement to provide a reasonable accommodation, meaning the employer can''t say, well, you know, the public accommodation should be doing it, not me, so I''m not going to pay anything. Or it could be in the vocational rehabilitation context, that an employer could say, hey, let vocational rehabilitation pay for it. If they don''t, that is not my problem, I''m not paying for it. If the item in question is a form of reasonable accommodation, then the employer will always have the obligation to provide the accommodation whether or not somebody else does. So we have advised employers that where they think somebody else may have an obligation, it should be discussed, it should be recognized as quickly as possible, like when employers are signing contracts for training programs, we are telling employers think about putting it into the contract. If you want the public accommodation to pick up 100% of the cost, then put it in the contract. Negotiate that. But did the employer understand it can''t get out of its obligation simply because another entity might have an overlapping obligation.
Okay, great. And then the other question I had, can you talk a little bit about the state''s immunity and how that relates to 504, for example, and also is that decision, the Supreme Court decision about that-it has not been ruled on yet, obviously.
No.
But the lower courts'' decisions about that, is that only for money that you can''t sue for compensatory or punitive damages or you can''t be sued, period?
What you are raising here about the immunity of states, first of all, the Supreme Court has ruled in terms of Title I of the ADA in a decision from Alabama, Garrett, a couple of years ago, now, that states cannot be sued for damages. It is not that states are immune from lawsuits. Let me really underscore that point. State governments can still be sued under the ADA and under other civil rights laws. The issue is simply could they be liable. If they are found liable for discrimination, then what kinds of remedies. And what the Garrett decision held, the Supreme Court''s Garrett decision, is that states would not be liable for monetary remedies, so punitive damages, compensatory damages, back pay, the money, that is what they are immune from, but they are certainly not immune from lawsuits. They are not immune from people filing charges with the EEOC. EEOC still has the authority to go in and investigate allegations of discrimination in state government. We can still find discrimination. We can still suggest the appropriate kinds of remedies. The justice department can still sue a state and they can sue a state for all kinds of damages. What we are talking about is the ability of individuals to sue for monetary damages, and that is what the Supreme Court said no to. An individual bringing a lawsuit against a state. Yes, you can do it, yes, the state might be found liable for discrimination, but the individual cannot collect damages, back pay, the money. The justice department can. So states need to be careful there too. And in fact after Garrett, EEOC and the justice department got together and looked at whether we should take an expanded role, EEOC being the one to first investigate, but then that we would refer cases that we think are worthy of litigation to the justice department. It may be more appropriate for the federal government to take a bigger role here in light of Garrett. Now, what you are referring to and what everybody kind of waited to see happen is section 504 of the rehabilitation act. And the Supreme Court I believe has taken the case, but no decision yet. It will be several months. As to whether we will see a sort of similar approach taken. But states really do need to understand they are still very much covered and that, you know, when we go around here at EEOC and do a lot of talking with state governments about importance to still recognize that all the obligations are there. And for state governments it is also important because most states have their own versions of the ADA and that is unaffected by the Supreme Court decision. So most states also have it as legal requirements, as state policy not to discriminate on the basis of disability and that if nothing else it doesn''t look particularly good for states, which remember have laws that they are enforcing as well. Every state has their EEOC equivalent. To be telling private companies you are not supposed to be doing these things and then seem to be turning around and themselves discriminating. So just as a matter of sort of public relations, if nothing else, you know, states still have the full range of obligations under the ADA.
Does that answer your question, Rick?
Yes
This is B`ill, I''m with Gail.
Okay, go ahead.
Yes. This is about disability determinations from the employer''s standpoint. Is it wise for an employer to make disability determinations or certifications? Would it be better for an employer to just avoid the term "disabled" and simply use the term "impairment" and focus on the interactive process and how we can help the individual? We have a large governmental entity and we have the resources to help people who might fall in that gray area, who might be impaired, but not disabled, and we are concerned about that regarded as, so if you could please help us with this.
I certainly will try. It is a good question. Just because as an employer you have the right when somebody requests accommodation to decide whether a person has an ADA disability, that is a right that the employer has since the right to provide reasonable accommodation extends to people with disabilities. Yes, you have a right to make that determination. But as a strategic matter, as a practical matter, is that the best way to go? Oftentimes the answer is no. You know, EEOC has never tried to dictate to employers, we wouldn''t think of trying to dictate what to do because in many ways it is very personal to the institution, the culture, what you are trying to accomplish. As you said in outlining your question that you''ve got a lot of resources. If there is a commitment to wanting to try to help employees, the goal being that people should be productive, that if that is the goal, everybody wins, and rather than getting bogged down in the technicalities, is it or is it not an ADA disability, because as everybody who is listening this afternoon probably knows, the definition of disability has become, for better, for worse, pretty technical. And it is not easy to make a decision. And the fact is that at either end of the spectrum, things that are so clearly disabilities, things that are so clearly not disabilities, you know, very easy, that is very nice. As we all know, very few cases come at either end of the spectrum. Most of them are in the middle of the most of them are in the gray area, which means that there is some evidence that goes one way, evidence going another way, reasonable people might disagree. In those kinds of cases, I tell employers be careful to kind of decide too quickly and too easily, no, that is not a disability so we are not doing anything. I think that strategically it makes more sense, as you suggested, get into the interactive process. What does the person need? Why does the person need it? How is this going to help the person? And that, you know, if you are going to turn down the request for accommodation, I think an employer can be on much stronger ground if they have really done a proper ADA analysis. They could be on much stronger ground to say we are not providing this because either it is not a form of reasonable accommodation and you can point to the things EEOC has identified as not being forms of accommodation. You can say it is an undue hardship, but again you would have done the appropriate analysis to show it. I think an employer, if it does that kind of an assessment can be on much stronger ground than making the disability assessment, because at the end of the day even those of us who deal with this day in and day out and know it pretty well, there is still in the gray area, so that means there can be two different ways to call it. So I do tend to tell employers really try to get into that interactive process and maybe hold off on doing disability, you know, unless and until there is really a good reason to. You can always go back to the issue of disability. The fact that you don''t start there doesn''t preclude you as an employer from returning to it later on. So, you know, in those instances where you are not making any determination on disability, I simply say to employers don''t tell the individuals anything one way or the other. Don''t come out and say we have decided you are a person with a disability when you haven''t, simply say that we have decided to focus for now on the accommodation, let us talk about it. And if you do that, as I said, hopefully everybody can come to an agreement on the accommodation. But if you really do the interactive process right and you really make all your assessments and there is just a good reason to turn down the accommodation request, undue hardship or something else, then it doesn''t really matter whether it is a disability or not. You''ve got your strong reasons that presumably you can back up. It just is not an accommodation we can provide. Does that answer your question?
Is it also-is there also a chance that if you say somebody is disabled that you can be giving them that third prong definition that they are being regarded as disabled simply because you are calling them disabled even if they don''t meet the high threshold that the courts have set for the definition?
It is a possibility, but on the whole I''d say it is a slim one. If there is just-you know, if you were to send a letter, you used the term certification earlier on and I''m not really sure what it means. But if you were to say I certify you have a disability, I find you have a disability, then, yes, I think even EEOC would take that and use that to potentially build a regarded as case. On the other hand, some minor slip, you know, somebody uses a term "disability" but it is one time and it is not about sort of thing we have done a whole analysis under the ADA and we are not finding you have a disability but just kind of in every day conversation might have had one or two references to it, I don''t think in and of itself that would be interpreted by EEOC as being enough to build a regarded as case and certainly it has not been enough in the courts. The courts have been very careful. They don''t want employers to kind of be trapped by their own goodwill. If an employer is trying to see about providing accommodation and in that context they make a couple of references to disability, none of the courts that I have read have wanted to say, well, then you regarded them. Quite the opposite. The courts want to encourage employers to be open to discussing accommodations, recognizing the need, again, this interactive process, and the free flow of information that has to happen here. And to suddenly turn around and kind of slap an employer and say but you used the term "disability", then no employer will ever be open to discussing accommodation without really nailing down whether or not it is a disability. It would act as a disincentive for employers to have a proactive approach to accommodation, to have a sort of broad initiative to say, all right, maybe some people will accommodate, really don''t fall under the ADA, but you know what, as employer, we don''t care. It is going to have people be productive, if it is going to create goodwill, if it will help us retain a good employee, that is the approach we want to take. And a court isn''t going to turn around and punish them and EEOC isn''t going to turn around and punish them.
Would it be left up to a doctor? How much should an employer rely on a doctor if they want to go through the disability determination route? Should they simply ask is this person disabled yes or no or is there something more than that needed?
A whole lot more. The problem on relying on doctors, and I say this whether the doctor is someone who works for the employer or is hired or contracted by the employer or the doctor is the one who treats the individual, doctors are not ADA experts. If you ask the question of a doctor does this person have a disability, what does that mean? I mean you may intend it to mean ADA disability. But the doctor doesn''t know that. And even if you say is it an ADA disability or you even take the step of saying is it a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, you know, everyone on the phone this afternoon has some idea what that definition means. We have all worked with it, we know what the statutes, the regulations, the various EEOC documents, a lot of us have followed court cases, but doctors don''t follow all of that. And so it becomes their personal interpretation of what this means. And this is one of the areas that I continue to see huge, huge problems because doctors are being asked questions that they are not qualified to answer, and nobody is really telling them what is expected of them. And the bottom line for an employer is that the employer is the one who is liable, not the doctor. The doctor will always be in the role of giving advice. So it isn''t a defense under the ADA for the employer to say, well, I asked the doctor if it was a disability and the doctor said yes. If EEOC determines, you know, we think it is a disability and, therefore, take an opposite view from the doctor and the employer, if a court does, it is no defense for the employer I relied on the doctor. The doctor is working for the employer. And so the employer, if it is going to delegate to the doctor the ability to make a legal decision, and let us face it, that is what this is. This really isn''t a medical decision. The definition we are talking about of disability is a legal one, not a medical one. So if a company, an employer wants to delegate that to a doctor, you do so at your own risk. But I think it is a really high risk. So I think it is better, if you are going to use doctors, focus on what doctors know best. What is the impairment? If there is issues around functional limitations, you know, to get that, but you really want the employer who ought to know or have somebody on staff who knows the ADA pretty well who can take that information and translate it into the terminology of the ADA. These functional limitations, is that similar to our list of major life activities, if so, which one. Can we get into some of the specifics on what makes something a substantial limitation? Again, not giving a jarring on to the doctor but saying, doctor, how severe is this limitation, please give me concrete examples. Person can never do it, person can do it only occasionally, only under these circumstances, here is how long a rest a person would need. This continues to be the biggest problem when you read the disability cases in the courts is the lack of evidence going to disability. And I can''t really explain why after all this time there still seems to be such problems understanding the sort of just basic kind of evidence of showing here is how severely someone is impacted, here kind of on a daily, weekly, basis the limitations, what those limitations mean, the practical reality of it. None of that detail is being put into a lot of these cases, and a lot of the courts are throwing cases out for lack of that detail. So I think an employer who really wants to go down that path, you know, that is the amount of information you are trying to get, but again, use the doctor as an advisor, not as the person who is going to make your ultimate decision. The employer should retain that.
That is excellent. Thank you very much, Sharon. There may be someone else who has a question.
I have a question as well. We are a large government entity, a large county, and we-we have county vendors that we can hire to do services. They are currently in a PDF format that people with visual impairments, while they may be able to read them, they can''t fill them out. Is this a Title I issue and do we have the obligation to make those accessible?
I''m sorry, I may need you to repeat the first part to understand this. You are contracting out-
We are a large government agency and we have vendors who provide services to our county that we can use for various services.
But are these things that your employees would need to use or is this for the public?
Employees.
I mean if it is something that an employee needs to use or someone who is an applicant, I don''t know if this has anything to do with how you all might be advertising job vacancies, but in terms of being a Title I issue, it is always about does what you are doing impact applicants or employees. So to the extent it is impacting people in either of those two categories, then potentially, yes. If there is some way that the program is not fully accessible. Now, having said if the program is not fully accessible with the concept of reasonable accommodation, one thing could be is there a way to make it fully accessible. But you can look at alternatives. The touchstone here, I mean we really have sort of two touchstones. One after last year''s Supreme Court decision in Barnett, you know, that we sort of always had reasonable. We want to make sure it is a reasonable accommodation, so that is there. But still there is the concept that it is effective. And so if it is something and you have something talking to you now who is technologically an idiot, to be blunt about it, so just on that basis I have to be careful whenever I get into technology questions because I can barely turn my computer on. But as long as something would be effective, so it doesn''t mean that you have to get a whole new program necessarily. If there is an alternative way to provide the same information effectively to whatever group of people, and the effectiveness idea here is that if non-disabled people could get access to this information literally, you know, in seconds but your alternative way for those who can''t, it would take two weeks to get it, well, that is obviously not going to be effective.
I think our question was do we have the obligation to do this at all. This is-again, it is a vendor applying to do work for the county to be a-they have to be a qualified vendor or county vendor, have signed up as a qualified vendor to even have a shot at specific jobs for the county.
Are you hiring them or the county? Who is hiring them?
The county.
So you have nothing to do with them. The county could hire them.
It is just like a contract. Maybe they need somebody to do training and, you know, you have to use-or maybe it is a sign language interpreter. You have to use county vendors to hire those people.
I think there is confusion about what your actual question is. The issue I guess we are trying to help figure out so we can get a good answer to this question, is it the issue being that the materials that the vendor has to access is in PDF or the materials the vendor is submitting is in PDF.
The materials the vendor is submitting. The real question is do we have an obligation to make this whole process accessible.
You can''t see the wheels turning in my brain. I apologize if I''m kind of missing the obvious question. In terms of making the process accessible, I''m struggling with who is the employee, who is the applicant because without that, then it is certainly not implicating Title I. Maybe it is implicating something else here.
That was our issue, we are not sure.
Well, I''m not sure either and if you are asking in terms of the materials the vendor is submitting to the county in order for the vendor to be hired, is that what you are-for the vendor to get a contract with the county?
They are county forms that the vendor has to fill out in order to be considered for any contract.
I don''t see this as a Title I issue because it is about getting a contract and Title I is not about contractors, it is about employees or applicants.
Okay. That is what we wanted to know.
Now, there may be a Title II issue. I mean counties are covered under Title II, and if a vendor, I mean if it was a vendor, a blind organization and the materials were in an inaccessible format such that the vendor would not be able to equally compete for a contract, that may raise Title II issues.
Okay. That is what we wanted to know.
Okay.
Good. Well, that took us a while.
Sorry about that.
That is okay. It is so confusing when you start talking and we run into this many times ourselves. I know all of my counterparts do too, trying to figure out when we are looking at the internet and the accessibility of different things whether it is the employment context or exactly what are we talking about happening and occurring as to whether or not there is an issue of program access there. So it can be a very tricky one and it does take some additional analysis. Can we move on and get our next question, please.
Hi, I''m Gail, I''m with Matt. My question has to do with at what point a request for reasonable accommodation must be made. And specifically if somebody had been warned that they are going to be terminated due to performance but between the time that they were warned and the time that they are terminated they reveal that they have a disability and request reasonable accommodation, is the employer obligated to honor that request in that circumstance?
Let me ask you for clarification before I answer it. When you say they are being warned that they are going to be terminated, is it that the decision has been made to terminate them and the warning is merely to say you''ve got a week and you are going to be out of here or is it a warning that, you know, if you do one more thing you could be terminated?
The warning is if you do one more thing, you are going to be terminated and then the one more thing is done and the employer says, okay, get your union steward and meet with me tomorrow and we are going to talk about what is going to happen and the union steward says, wait a minute, wait a minute, there is some ADA issues here. But the one more things were already done.
Then I think it is probably too late in the process. As EEOC indicated in its guidance on reasonable accommodation, accommodation will not excuse past misconduct, past misbehavior, past bad performance. Reasonable accommodation is always looking ahead. So when somebody has received a warning, but here what you''ve done is you''ve kind of combined it. You said, okay, you''ve getting your warning. One more time, you know, whatever it is happens, you will be terminated. Well, that is the notice to the person that there is obviously a big problem. And if the individual, the employee is sitting there and he or she knows that the problem is related to a disability, this is the time to speak up. And if they don''t and yet, you know, having gotten that warning, now they commit the same infractions, the misbehavior, the bad performance, whatever it is, and now true to your word and an employer ought to be true to his or her word here, we told you if you do this one more time you would be terminated, so now you''ve done it one more time. Now you will be terminated and so bring in the union steward because that is the process as we terminate you. Now to say, wait a minute, there is a disability, I want accommodation, that is sort of what we refer to as the 11th hour case. The person has waited too long. They knew the consequence. If something happened, that was going to immediately lead to termination. And in that instance, it is now too late, once they have again committed the infraction because you don''t have to-in effect what they''d be saying is don''t terminate me for all my misconduct. But if that is now the stage you are at, they have been warned, they have been counseled, you''ve followed the procedures to lead up to this point, they can''t say I had no idea anything was wrong. And intrinsically they may be asking for a whole bunch of accommodations, one of them is don''t punish me for my misconduct, don''t terminate me. And the EEOC has made clear that is not a form of reasonable accommodation. So it is too late. Individuals need to speak up as soon as they are put on notice that there is a problem. That is the moment that an individual needs to speak up. And, you know, you obviously have a unionized workplace. I mean one thing we have suggested, management may want to pursue with unions, is whether for unions to educate or sort of joint education that employers don''t want to have to terminate people. And employers have often set up procedures to give people counseling, to give people warning with the idea that people have a chance to correct the problem and improve and become a good productive employee. But there may need to be some education in the work force about, you know, whatever reasons, including those related to disability. You know, you need to speak up. As soon as you begin to get the counseling, the warning, but waiting until the time of termination is too late. And again, you can look to the EEOC guidance''s for that principle. So waiting until-you know, if they come just as the termination is about to be handed to them, that is too late.
Okay, thank you.
Next question, please.
This is Denise Spielman, I''m here with Lenae. Can you please speak to the amount of time an employer has to respond to a verbal reasonable accommodation request? And specifically point me toward any legal cases. I know there is not a black and white you must sit down with the person within three weeks kind of thing, but what guidance can you give on that?
It is a tough one. I mean in our guidance, the EEOC said that an employer should respond expeditiously because we can''t give a plaque and white answer to this. In terms of court cases, I am not aware that any court came out and said, you know, must do it in five days or 10 days or something like that. I mean what you are more likely to have are employers who-where a court looking at the facts says this employer never responded or, you know, whatever it is. Again, very much after the fact. Saying ultimately we therefore find you failed to provide a reasonable accommodation. I think if one of-it is one of these things that really needs to be emphasized really from the top of the organization down. First of all, to recognize what is a request for reasonable accommodation because remembering people don''t have to refer to the term reasonable accommodation, people don''t have to refer to the ADA. A lot of employers miss a request for reasonable accommodation has come in. That is still one of the most common problems we find. And so if you don''t understand that there has just been a request for accommodation, then obviously you probably aren''t going to respond very quickly to it. So I think the first thing is really focusing, and it is a training issue. It is very much both training and again this emphasis that this is considered critical. This is not the kind of thing to be put on the back burner. I think that is a message that really has to come from as high up in an organization as possible about how much-that senior management is putting an emphasis on this. Once you''ve sort of addressed that point, then in terms of how quickly it ought to be done. And the fact that there can be legal consequences of where you are dragging your heels. I mean it gets lost in the shuffle, all the rest of it, for sure when these cases end up in court, courts do look at that. I mean it can be an indication of good faith or lack of good faith by an employer. It can mean the difference between whether an employer might win the case without going to trial, what we call summary judgment where a judge without having a trial and bringing out all the facts can just look and say, you know, everything here looks really good, or what happens in the kind of case you are really raising where someone, an employer, drags its heels, it really didn''t respond very quickly. Those kinds of cases are the ones being ordered to trial before juries. Where a court is saying, look, that doesn''t look like good faith to me and it looks like this wasn''t considered all that important and you put the person off and we don''t really see good legitimate reasons why you put the person off and why you didn''t make a decision here. So those are the kind of cases that then get sent to trial and to juries. So I realize that is in a way a non-answer because nobody can give you a kind of hard and fast time line, but I think it really has to emphasize the importance of this kind of request, of making a decision, of who is going to be making the decision, that person make-taking it seriously, gathering the information necessary, engaging in that interactive process, call the EEOC for help, you know, call job accommodation network, find the resources to help you if you need it but that really if we are talking about a month, two months, three months or more, something is probably wrong.
Just a follow-up to that, Sharon, because we often get questions about what is the consequence or-to the individual in the period of time when this interactive process is occurring. For example, the individual makes a request and they can''t really do their job effectively until the accommodation is provided, but yet, you know, it takes this time period to be able to go through this process, the implications to an employee and an employer during that period of time in regards to, you know, responsibilities or obligations such as pay and kinds of things.
Well because it is the beauty of reasonable accommodation and maybe to lots of people the frustration of it because it is so individualized. Where the person is requesting the accommodation which goes to the ability to perform the job, in other words, I really can''t perform a certain function of my job or I can''t perform it very well until I get an accommodation, that ought to get a pretty high priority because it means you are not getting as productive an employee. And so in terms-now, obviously, sometimes depending on what is being requested, I can well see certain situations where, you know, in half an hour you should be able to make a decision because it is pretty clear cut and it is not that difficult what you need to do and you do it. In other instances where we may be talking about very specialized equipment or something and so you are going to have to make some phone calls and then if, you know, everybody is agreed on the equipment and then suppose there is back orders and it may take four months to get whatever you need, I mean in those circumstances where you''ve moved as quickly as you can, but again outside your control, it is going to take four months. Everybody has to think about what to do during the four-month period but that is as quick as it is going to go. But, again, the reason I''m emphasize to employers to move at their end as quickly as possible, because what about the things that are beyond your control, like where you have to order something. You don''t want to take as an employer three months to make a decision and then it may take three months to get the piece of equipment. Three months to make a decision, that was within an employer''s control and something about taking that long suggests it was not a very high priority. It really got put aside for a bit, it got fit in where it could. So again you sort of need to really pay attention, and especially something that might take a while, get the ball rolling. Keep it moving. But again, what you are going to do depending on how things work out really becomes almost, you know, very fact specific. It is sort of hard to come up with one, you know, one kind of-one framework because it just doesn''t work that way. Change the facts slightly and I give you a very different answer. Does that kind of get at it, Robin?
Yeah, and also on the other end, whether or not for the folks out in Oregon, does that get it for them?
Yes. I had thought that a long time ago I had read the results of a court case saying that dragging feet five months was considered to be way too long. And I was hopeful that there had been some legislation that I could go double check and be able to quote that to callers, but if there is no specific time frame, I mean obviously everything is decided on a case-by-case basis, I was just hoping that it might have been considered before in a court case.
Well, I mean, you know, without knowing the specifics, I mean it is very possible a court said five months was too long and I would agree. I mean it is hard for me to imagine how that wouldn''t be way too much time. But again, certainly the ADA doesn''t set it. You asked about legislation. I can''t speak to any state law that say might give more concrete time lines. I''m not aware of any. But I''m not the expert on what state laws may look like. But even if we have a court case that says five months, I certainly don''t want any employer to think it can take four months or four and a half months based on that court case.
Right.
I think the thing here is that, again, my sense of courts here, they have been following EEOC''s general guidance. Depending on the facts, an employer''s obligation is to move as expeditiously as possible. And we laid out in our guidance certain factors that might extent the time period, things that could come up, but the general expectation that we set down is that this will receive a high priority and it will move quickly. Courts have taken that and then they will apply it to the facts of the specific case. In the case you are thinking of where a court said, whoa, five months, way too long, but I''m not going to tell any employer to think that that gives them approval to take four, four and a half months, because just as likely the courts would look at that and, again, depending on what kind of thing is somebody asking for, what was the employer doing during that interval, an employer wasn''t doing much of anything. I don''t care if it is two weeks, we could still end up having a case where a court would say you weren''t doing anything. You don''t get credit for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Yes, I''m here. I was curious as to the Toyota decision. I hadn''t heard of it. Of course I''m new to this. Could you enlighten me, please?
Yeah. Briefly, the Supreme Court had a case coming from a Toyota plant that looked at the definition of disability and specifically looked at the major life activity of performing manual tasks. And what the Supreme Court said in that case is, first of all, it recognized that performing manual tasks is one of the major life activities, but it recognized that performing manual tasks, there are dozens, hundreds of ways that individuals perform manual tasks. What the Supreme Court said, you know, are all those-do you just have to be limited in one of those tasks to be considered substantially limited in the major life activities, do you have to be limited in two of them, are some manual activities more significant or more important than others, so if those are where you experience your limitations that will count more. So what the Supreme Court ended up deciding is that looking at all major life activities and saying what ties them together, walking, talking, breathing, interacting with other people, thinking, what ties all those together are these are all activities of central importance to most people''s daily lives. So when you are assessing a person who is limited in performing manual tasks, the Supreme Court said you want to see if the person is limited in performing those manual tasks that would be of central importance in most people''s daily lives. And the Supreme Court looked at manual tasks involved in housecleaning, they said manual tasks involved in bathing and dressing. Those are manual activities of central importance to most people''s daily lives. So if a person was substantially limited in those kinds of manual activities, then the conclusion is that person is substantially limited in the major life activity of performing manual tasks. That in a nutshell was the Toyota decision.
And someone can access that information. The Supreme Court cases are listed on the Supreme Court website and there has been other references on the internet to that. I also would recommend that you contact your DBTAC for more information if you''d like the specifics of that particular case.
Yes, I would. Thank you.
Next question, please.
Thank you very much. First of all, Robin, thanks for all those wonderful e-mails you put out with all the great information. I enjoy reading them. My question is if a person who has a disability is-due to a transfer of a-
I''m having trouble, you are breaking up.
Is that better?
Yeah, go ahead. For some reason it seemed like your message was breaking up, go ahead.
I will pick up the receiver.
There you go.
If a person with a disability is-due to the change in his job, let us say he is transferred from one store location to another one and because of that he has difficulty and needs reasonable accommodations and he is basically off work while he is working through the reasonable accommodations process, is the company that has kept him off work while they try to figure out what they are going to do for reasonable accommodations, would they be liable for any kind of back pay or other monetary remuneration?
That is one of these gray areas that nothing sort of spells it out. And again, it is one of the reasons EEOC has emphasized to employers to move quickly. You know, having people sit at home is not a good idea. I mean, no. 1, they are not producing anything for the employer when they are doing it. Also in terms of goodwill and what is happening. I mean EEOC has suggested to employers that they might want to put people on some kind of paid administrative leave while this is happening. Alternatively, employers might want to look at some ways the person could keep working. It may not be in the new job yesterday yet because they are still working out the accommodation but what about continuing in the old job, if that''s feasible, or something else that would seem to work. Again, it is kind of an interim measure, but the idea so the person can continue drawing a salary that would be better than the option of sending the person home on unpaid leave. But there isn''t anything necessarily specifically that addresses it, but again, as I say, why an employer would want to move as quickly as possible to try and come up with a solution or at least a resolution of this situation.
Does that respond to your question?
Yeah. Can I ask one more?
We need to see if we have some others but we will come back to you if we don''t because our time is getting short and I apologize. Next question, please.
I was wondering, you mentioned Garrett and Toyota and a couple of other cases that we have had in the last year or two. I was wondering if you could give us a synopsis, Sharon, of what is on the horizon given the fact that we are not likely to see a positive change in the Supreme Court over the next couple of years.
I guess I''d say, first of all, I think the cases have been from EEOC''s perspective a little more of a mixed bag. I think the absolute low point in terms of the Supreme Court was the Sutton decision, the mitigating measures. I don''t think anything has come close to being really as devastating as that decision was. Last term the three Supreme Court decisions I don''t think EEOC felt particularly bad about any of them. Even if we might have come out differently on a couple of them, I don''t think they were surprises. The handwriting was on the wall based on what lower courts were doing. So, you know, our feeling was it was okay. It was workable. I mean I think that the biggest issues continue to be with disability. When you get into court, that continues to be the toughest thing the plaintiffs have to face is sort of overcoming the disability hurdle. In terms of reasonable accommodation, I think plaintiffs, once they get to that part of a case, do a lot better. I think the courts overall have been pretty good on how they analyze reasonable accommodation in terms of the importance of an interactive process occurring. As I said earlier, if there isn''t one, then an employer has a much harder time justifying itself. Not impossible, but a harder time for sure. So, you know, it doesn''t mean that every decision has been great, but I think overall it has been fairly positive once courts look at those kinds of issues. I think things are still very up in the air. I mean I think that there is also a recognition that courts, like everyone else, like all of us, a kind of reeducation about disability. Recognizing it as a civil rights issue and nut a health issue, looking at these issues about people working, that that is the objective and the goal of the ADA as opposed to some kind of entitlement program, which is more like social security. I mean a lot of times if you read decisions you see that the courts are very unclear still about what the ADA is, why it came into being, its purpose, its objective, and so I think there is still, you know, a sense of trying to educate the courts too because without that, it kind of explains some of the decisions we get, like the catch-22. If you are bound to be disabled, the idea is, well, gee, if you are really disabled, how could you possibly work? I mean that whole notion is what ADA was meant to kind of address. Now it is really coming back to bite us. So I think that so far the Supreme Court has not taken ADA cases in terms of Title I and we kind of hope it won''t. We would like a chance to kind of catch our breath after last year. Obviously the court is not done with Title I at the ADA. We expect more Supreme Court decisions. But I think-I keep telling people you''ve got to stay in it for the long haul. You know, we are still dealing with the age discrimination, we still are dealing with Title VII, you know, over 30 years after that was enacted, there is still new issues coming up. ADA is truly in its infancy even though it has been over 10 years. When there is a bad decision, we are all, you know, upset about that, but then we have just got to redouble our efforts, get back into the courts, really try and have an influence on some of those cases that are going in. That is why EEOC as much as we can to really have our voice heard in these cases and then let us see. I mean that is about the best I can tell you.
I think as just a follow-up to Sharon''s comments, I think one of the things that we typically have to caution even when we''re talking to people in the community is they have to be really leery where they''re getting their interpretation of what the Supreme Court decisions actually said. If we rely on the press, I think we would have a very different or skewed idea of what the Supreme Court decisions actually said and we really need to work with individuals, whether it is our protection advocacy organizations or other groups in the community to help us understand what those goods and bads of those decisions are because sometimes you are able to find some positive things that can be used and be really-it isn''t always as bad as it sometimes appears or as skewed as it sometimes will appear so I think there is a need to do that. Also people may or may not be aware the fact that there are groups at the national level looking at an ADA restoration act which would look to some of the issues that the Supreme Court has addressed that may have actually attacked or eroded some of the progress under the ADA such as the definition of disability and such and this is not uncommon to what we have seen under other civil rights acts, such as the civil rights restoration act of 1988 and such which had addressed many things that had happened in the Supreme Court prior to that with many of the other areas of civil rights. So there are a lot of activities undergoing and things and I think we always have to keep moving forward in this arena.
I think-I will follow-up on your follow-up. I think because we are all working in ADA we forget that sometimes we get caught up in other trends. Like we talked about the Garrett decision this afternoon, the Supreme Court has a whole string of cases in which they are limiting the application of a variety of federal laws. Not just ADA but a variety of federal laws. They''re limiting the application to the states. And so, you know, ADA got caught up in that but that was not the Supreme Court going after the ADA in particular. Also the caution, and robin is absolutely right, I mean generally legal reporting in this country is pretty bad. Every Supreme Court decision was portrayed that the individual with a disability lost. Well, no. Technically nobody lost because the Supreme Court in all those cases sent them back down to the lower court saying here is our new instructions to you, now go back and have a trial and see how it works out. And in fact in the chevron case, the direct threat to self case, EEOC participated on the side of the employee, not on the side of chevron but on the side of the employee saying chevron had failed to show when you applied the Supreme Court standard, which happens to be EEOC''s regulation, that chevron fails to show he poses a direct threat to himself. That case is pending right now. So he did not lose in the Supreme Court he just had to go back and apply the direct threat to self-regulation, so it is important, as Robin was saying. Take with a grain of salt. Contact your DBTAC''s because I know they''re putting out information and it is a lot more reliable.
We''re unfortunately at the end of our time. We have gotten on to many different discussions and could probably spend another two hours with a number of questions and it would take some time for us to get rolling and maybe we spent more time than we should on some issues and not enough on others and we sincerely apologize for that. We are at almost the end of our hour and a half here, our 90 minutes, so we do need to wrap up. So I apologize for all of you that did not get your questions answered. This is a collaborative effort of all the 10 DBTAC''s across the country working together and we are committed and interested in making sure people get their inquiries and questions answered so we recommend that you contact your DBTAC. They can assist you in response to your question, they can have contact directly with Sharon to get questions answered and I know Sharon is very open to taking questions from individuals and she can give some more information about that. You can contact your DBTAC your regional technical assistance center at 800-949-4232. That is voice and tty. Also just to let you know that the federal agencies to have a host of information as the EEOC does on its website. We did direct you to various resources that were on the EEOC website through linkages on the information about this particular session, but I would encourage you to look at those documents. They may help you in responding to some of your questions. Or, again, you can get copies of those documents from your DBTAC''s you can also contact them through their websites or their telephone lines and such. Sharon, I will throw it back to you to say any parting comments or anything you would like to give to the group before we sign off today.
I''m really glad I had the opportunity and I echo Robin about regrets that we didn''t get to everybody. I realize I get to be long-winded with some of these answers, but I do hope that you will take advantage and contact the DBTAC''s. I talk to them all the time and one way or another we will be happy to get answers to the questions we didn''t have time for this afternoon.
Thank you very much. Just as a reminder, our next session is next week, January 28th, creating access to temporary events starting at 1:00 p.m. Central time going to 2:30 p.m. Central time. Registration information, again, is available online and through your DBTAC. Our February session is focusing on information technology accessibility and going beyond accessibility of the web. A lot of attention and focus is often placed to accessible websites and such. When we talk about accessible information technology but there is a much bigger and broader arena out there of accessible information technology and we will be discussing that on our session in February which will feature Jim Tobias who is the director of inclusive technologies as well as a collaborator with the information technology technical assistance and training center located at Georgia Tech. That session is February 18th of this year at the same time frame. Again, individuals interested in more information, please contact your DBTAC about these sessions, promote them to your friends. Just as an FYI, the transcript of this session will be posted online within the next week or so as well as the audio tape which you will be able to relisten to which you will be able to access online also from the Great Lakes website and that information will be available through your DBTAC''s as well. Thank you for joining us and I hope the information was useful to you. Have a good day.