Dealing with Service and Emotional Support Animals at Work

In recent years, individuals have increasingly claimed they need animals to accompany them in public places, and the workplace. These issues are covered primarily by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title I of the ADA addresses workplace rights while Titles II and III cover public accommodation.

Accommodating the General Public

The ADA requires businesses to accommodate “service animals” belonging to members of the general public, like customers. There is no requirement to permit “emotional support” or other animals in public places, with some exceptions such as housing, which is subject to HUD regulations. For public accommodation, the ADA limits a “service animal” to either a dog or a miniature horse. Further, a service animal must be individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. The service animal must perform tasks that are directly related to its owner’s disability. There are no specific requirements for the type of training or certification needed for the service animal. The handler assumes certain responsibilities when bringing a service animal onto a business’s premises. Those responsibilities include controlling, cleaning up after, and providing care to the animal. A business can ask the handler to remove a service animal from the premises if the animal is out of control or the animal is not housebroken.

If the handler’s disability is obvious (i.e., a blind person with a guide dog), then the business should allow the handler and service animal to come on its premises without inquiry or hesitation. When the handler’s disability and need for the service animal are not obvious, a business can make an inquiry, but is only allowed to ask two specific questions: (1) whether the animal is required because of a disability; and (2) what work or task the animal has been trained to perform. It is a violation of the ADA for the business to ask for documentation of the handler’s disability, certification or proof of training of the service animal, or for the service animal to perform a demonstration of the task it was trained to perform. 

If the handler does not respond to the two permissible questions appropriately, the business can request that the handler remove the service animal from its property.

Complaints from other customers about allergies or phobias do not give the business the right to request removal of the service animal. The business must allow the handler and service animal access to all areas that other members of the public are permitted to go.  

 Employee Accommodation

Accommodating employee requests to bring a service animal to work is more complicated because Title I of the ADA is silent on the issue. As such, a request need not be limited to traditional service animals, and can include other comfort animals, often referred to as “emotional support animals.”

However, unlike public accommodation, there is no requirement that employers must allow employees to bring service animals to work, nor is there a guaranteed right to bring emotional support animals into the workplace. Instead, the request for a service or emotional support animal at work requires application of the normal ADA reasonable accommodation test, along with a determination whether the animal’s presence causes an undue hardship on the company. Therefore, the employer must engage in the same interactive process that it would for any disability accommodation request.

If the disability is not obvious, an employer has the right to request documentation that the employee needs the animal as an accommodation to perform his/her job duties. Likewise, an employer can request documentation or demonstration that the animal is properly trained and will not cause disruption in the workplace.

Other employees’ allergies and phobias do not constitute an undue hardship if the employer is capable of effectively addressing the situation. For example, an employer could remedy the situation by moving the requesting employee’s work station, changing their schedule, regularly cleaning the work area, allowing the employee to work from home, or any other solution that resolves the issue.

If an employer does allow an animal as a disability accommodation, the disabled employee is responsible for the animal’s care, including hygiene, vaccinations, bathroom breaks, and controlling the animal to make sure it does not disrupt operations. An employer may also be required to allow secondary accommodations relating to the care of the service animal, such as allowing the employee to take additional breaks and establishing an area outside for the animal to relieve itself.

The key is to take a request for accommodation involving an employee’s service or emotional support animal seriously and apply the same reasonable accommodation/undue hardship analysis that would be applied in any other situation involving reasonable accommodations under the ADA.

My thanks to David M. Kalteux, Esq. whose article is significantly cited herein. See, “Who Let the Dogs In? Legal Requirements for Service Animals in Businesses and the Workplace, Ford Harrison, 2018.