Court razes architect’s failure-to-accommodate suit

The Georgia Court of Appeals recently upheld a trial court’s dismissal of an employee’s claim that his employer failed to accommodate his disability, holding that Georgia state law provided him no legal remedy.

Facts

In 2016, Lindsay Pope Brayfield & Associates, Inc. (LPB)—a Lawrenceville, Georgia, architectural firm—hired Gary Johnson, a licensed architect. At the time of hire, he made LPB aware he suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus.

In 2017, Johnson acquired hearing aids, which picked up both nearby sound and distant ambient noise but couldn’t be adjusted for frequency or volume. Without his hearing aids, he could converse with coworkers only by reading lips.

For several months without incident, Johnson’s worked on LPB’s third floor, next to his coworker Jim Lord, both of whom reported to company president Winford Lindsay. In November 2017, Lindsay advised Johnson that Lord had complained he generated too much “noise” and had thus asked for a workspace relocation.

Addressing Lord’s complaint, Lindsay asked Johnson to “cut back” on his noisemaking and avoid speaking loudly, suggesting his loudness was attributable to his hearing aids. Two days later, Lindsay told Johnson that because of a “reorganization,” he should consider moving to another workstation on LPB’s first floor.