ABSTRACT
Does disability rights law impose an obligation on employers, schools, and other places of public accommodation to control the behavior of coworkers, students, or other third parties to accommodate an individual with disabilities? This Article examines this unexplored legal question. It traces the development of case law and shows that the law frequently fails to protect people with disabilities from the choices and behaviors of third parties that can serve as major barriers to access yet are often considered beyond the reach of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s reasonable accommodation doctrine. This Article argues that this problem is the result of the improper imposition of the privity paradigm, which limits the inquiry about the reasonableness of an accommodation to the relationship between the first party (the disabled individual) and the second party (the employer or other entity covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act). Using disability studies, legal theory, and political economy analysis, this Article shows how this narrow interpretation of the reasonable accommodation mandate has failed to adapt to our modern understanding of disability as resulting from a complex interaction between the impairment and the social environment. To address the issue, this Article introduces a new theory of third-party accommodations, which would require others to alter or cease behaviors to accommodate an individual with disabilities. This Article then suggests a normative framework that courts can use to analyze cases involving requests for third-party accommodations, including the factors that should be balanced in determining the reasonableness of a request. In highlighting the need to move beyond a constricted interpretation of reasonable accommodation, this Article imagines a new horizon for disability justice.
Dorfman, Doron, Third-Party Accommodations (February 29, 2024), Michigan Law Review, 2025, Forthcoming.
Leave a Reply