Employer can't accommodate your restrictions? What happens next

You're holding a note from a clinician: a lifting limit, an hours limit, no standing, no overtime. Your employer has told you it can't be accommodated. Maybe you were sent home already, or you're waiting to hear what happens next.

Some restriction notes come from something that happened at work. Just as many come from surgery, a chronic condition, an illness, or a pregnancy that has nothing to do with the job. That difference matters more than almost anything else here.

"Can't accommodate" sounds final. It isn't always. What comes next depends on where the restriction came from, how big your employer is, and what the employer actually did before landing on "no."

What happens if my employer can't accommodate my restrictions?

"Can't accommodate" is a claim your employer is making, not a verdict a court has reached. Under 29 CFR 1630.2, an employer covered by the ADA (one with 15 or more employees) may need to work through what the regulation calls an informal, interactive process with an employee who needs a reasonable accommodation to do the essential functions of the job.

That process can end in a real "no." The EEOC's enforcement guidance on reasonable accommodation allows an employer to deny an accommodation that would cause undue hardship, defined as "significant difficulty or expense," or that isn't effective at all. It doesn't contemplate an employer skipping the process and just announcing a refusal.

Light duty is one specific kind of accommodation, with its own rules, covered below. Whether any of this gets you back to work depends on facts specific to your situation, and this page isn't legal advice.

Certicare is a telehealth service where leave and accommodation paperwork is completed and signed by a state-licensed provider after an evaluation.

Was the injury at work? Why that changes everything

Before anything else, the first fork in the road is where the restriction came from. It decides which of three systems leads, and they don't run the same way. They can overlap; what changes is who decides what.

Hurt at work

An injury on the job runs through workers' compensation, a state system separate from the ADA. The workers'-comp carrier and a state agency, not federal disability law, decide medical treatment and wage benefits for that injury.

The EEOC's enforcement guidance on workers' compensation and the ADA is direct about this: "Even if an employee with an occupational injury has a 'disability' as defined by a workers' compensation statute, s/he may not have a 'disability' for ADA purposes." The two labels don't line up automatically. The ADA can still apply on top, if the impairment independently meets the ADA's own definition — but that's a separate question from the workers'-comp claim itself.

Workers'-compensation cases are outside what this page can help with. A state workers'-compensation agency, the employer's insurance carrier, or a workers'-comp attorney is who actually decides that branch.

A condition that isn't from work

If the restriction comes from surgery, an illness, or a chronic condition unrelated to the job, the ADA is the route, not workers' comp. That means an employer with 15 or more employees, the interactive process described above, and documentation when the need for it isn't obvious.

Workers' comp isn't involved, but some states run a temporary disability benefit for off-the-job conditions, decided separately from the accommodation question. New York's is covered in short-term disability in New York. The accommodation conversation itself happens between you and your employer, under the ADA's own rules.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy-related restrictions fall under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, in effect since 2023. It covers employers with 15 or more employees, and light duty is named directly as one example of an accommodation, alongside things like extra breaks or a stool to sit on.

An employer can't force you onto leave under the PWFA if a different accommodation would let you keep working. Leave is a last resort here, not a default.

Does an employer have to offer light duty?

"Light duty" means different things at different employers. The EEOC's guidance on workers' compensation and the ADA uses it, for its own questions and answers, to mean positions "created specifically for the purpose of providing work for employees who are unable to perform some or all of their normal duties," and that is the sense used here. The ADA itself doesn't require an employer to create one; the EEOC's guidance says an employer does not have to create a new position.

But if an employer already reserves light-duty positions for people hurt on the job, and one is sitting vacant, the guidance says it must reassign an employee with a non-occupational disability into that slot as a reasonable accommodation, on three conditions: no other effective accommodation is available, the employee can perform that position's essential functions, and the reassignment isn't an undue hardship. An employer can't claim undue hardship just by pointing out it has no other open light-duty spots. And where a light-duty program is temporary by design, the employer only owes a temporary assignment.

Two employer-specific examples, if either applies to you: Walmart's restrictions and light-duty process and Amazon's restrictions and light-duty process.

How long can you be on light duty, and how many hours can you work?

There's no federal number here. Nothing in the ADA or the EEOC's guidance sets a maximum number of hours, a minimum, or a length of time for a light-duty assignment.

Two documents actually set those limits, and neither one is a statute. Your restriction note sets the medical boundaries — hours, lifting, standing, whether overtime is off the table at all. Whether the employer can work within those boundaries is the accommodation question. The employer's own written light-duty policy sets how long a light-duty position runs.

Overtime follows the same logic. If your note restricts hours, that is the medical limit the employer has to work with. If the note is silent on overtime, it's the employer's policy that decides, not a general rule this page can hand you. For an on-the-job injury, state workers'-comp law adds another layer on top, which varies by state.

Read your own note closely, and ask your employer, in writing, for its actual light-duty policy, rather than guessing at either one.

What the interactive process actually requires of the employer

Once a request is on the table, the ADA doesn't leave the employer's next moves to guesswork. The EEOC's 2002 guidance lays out what's expected at each step. None of it expires by default: the guidance calls the duty to accommodate "an ongoing one," and either side can revisit an accommodation later if the job or the condition changes.

Respond expeditiously

An employer is supposed to respond to a request without unnecessary delay. Dragging things out isn't neutral: the guidance says unnecessary delays "can result in a violation of the ADA."

Ask for documentation, within limits

An employer can request documentation, but only when the disability or the need for the accommodation isn't obvious. Where that documentation is fair game, it should describe the nature, severity, and duration of the impairment, what activities it limits, and how much it limits your ability to do the job. That's what the letter has to cover.

Consider effective accommodations, reassignment last

The employer has to consider accommodations that would actually work, but it doesn't have to eliminate an essential function of the job or lower a production standard. Reassignment to a different position is on the table only after it's clear no effective accommodation exists in the current one — the last resort, not the first offer.

Weigh your preference, but the employer chooses

Where more than one accommodation would work, the employer can pick among them. Your preference is supposed to get "primary consideration," but the employer keeps final say over which effective option to use.

What if the employer says no accommodation is possible?

Undue hardship is something the employer has to show, in the guidance's own words, not something you have to disprove. It means significant difficulty or expense, or something that would fundamentally change how the business runs — not simple inconvenience.

A vacant, reserved light-duty slot is a specific example where that burden is hard to meet: an employer can't establish undue hardship just by saying it has no other light-duty positions open.

There's a hard floor here, too. The EEOC's 2016 guidance on employer-provided leave states plainly that an employer violates the ADA if it requires an employee with a disability to be "100% healed," free of all medical restrictions, before returning, when the employee could actually do the job with an accommodation in place.

If nothing else works, leave itself is on the table. The same guidance requires an employer to consider unpaid leave as a reasonable accommodation, including for someone who isn't eligible for FMLA or who has already used it up. What ADA leave actually means covers how that request works.

If you think what happened was discrimination rather than a hard "no," a charge with the EEOC has its own clock: 180 days from the incident, or 300 days where a state or local agency enforces the same rule.

What paperwork does this take, and who completes it?

The documentation behind any of this has to describe the same things: the nature, severity, and duration of the condition, which activities it limits, and how much it limits your ability to do the job. A form that skips those pieces may come back asking for more.

A "return to work with restrictions" form is often the employer's own paperwork, separate from a general doctor's note, and it's typically completed and signed by a state-licensed provider after an evaluation. The return-to-work form and workplace accommodation forms cover what each one actually asks for.

Completing our intake form starts the review; it does not guarantee a signature, and if the review does not support your request you are refunded in full.