Employers often worry that a good-faith effort to keep an injured employee working will later be used against them as proof they “could have accommodated” the employee indefinitely. A recent Sixth Circuit decision draws a clear line between temporary flexibility and permanent obligation.
TL;DR: The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment on a failure-to-accommodate claim where a corrections officer returned from an on-duty injury with restrictions including “sitting job only, office type work only,” worked for several months in a transitional assignment, and then sought to continue that work indefinitely. Because the employee remained classified, paid, and benefitted as a corrections officer, the court evaluated essential functions based on that permanent role – not the temporary assignment. The court also rejected the argument that a transitional assignment could be treated as a vacant position suitable for reassignment.
📄 Read the Sixth Circuit opinion
A familiar return-to-work scenario
After a workplace injury, a long-tenured corrections officer returned to work with significant medical restrictions. His doctor limited him to “sitting job only, office type work only,” with no lifting, bending, or physical activity typical of a corrections officer.
To accommodate those restrictions, the employer placed him in a transitional employment assignment in a training department. The arrangement lasted about six months, with a short extension beyond the employer’s usual timeframe for transitional work.
When it became clear the condition would not improve in the short term, the employee submitted a formal accommodation request. His doctor described the restrictions as “permanent – until” hip replacement surgery. The employee asked to remain in light-duty work. The employer denied the request, citing exhausted entitlements and a lack of qualifying vacancies. The employee ultimately selected a leave option that ended employment but preserved certain length-of-service benefits.
The legal issue that mattered
To succeed on a failure-to-accommodate claim, the employee had to show he was “otherwise qualified,” meaning he could perform the essential functions of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation.
The dispute centered on a deceptively simple question:
What was the relevant job for that analysis?
The employee argued it was the transitional assignment he had been performing. The employer argued it was the permanent corrections officer position he remained classified, paid, and benefitted under.
The Sixth Circuit sided with the employer.
Why the employer won
Because the employee remained formally classified as a corrections officer throughout the transitional assignment, the court evaluated essential functions based on that role – not the temporary work he was doing.
The employee conceded he could not perform the essential functions of a corrections officer. That left only one path forward: showing that his requested accommodation was reasonable.
It was not.
The court rejected the argument that continuing transitional work amounted to a reassignment. The record showed transitional assignments were not vacancies, not funded positions, and not permanent roles. They were temporary, customized sets of tasks designed to keep employees working while recovery was expected. The employer also presented testimony that it does not have a specific light-duty position.
Temporary workarounds can be reasonable accommodations when they help an employee remain employed while recovering and returning to the essential functions of the job. But once it becomes clear that the employee cannot perform those essential functions, the question is whether the employer must make the workaround permanent – and the answer is generally no.
The court also rejected an interactive-process argument. A breakdown in the interactive process is actionable only if it prevents identifying an appropriate accommodation for a qualified individual. Here, the employee could not identify a reasonable accommodation that would allow him to perform the essential functions of the job.
What employers should take from this
• Temporary or transitional assignments do not redefine a job’s essential functions.
• Accommodation obligations are tied to the permanent role, not to a temporary workaround.
• Reassignment requires evidence of a specific vacant position the employee is qualified to perform.
• If you want light duty to remain temporary, your policies and documentation should say so clearly.
Bottom line
Accommodation law allows flexibility, not job reinvention. Helping an employee recover does not require an employer to turn a temporary solution into a permanent job.