123.26 Visual, hearing impairments

Although the Complainant demonstrated the existence of a hearing impairment, he did not show that that impairment made achievement unusually difficult for him or limited his capacity to work. Wearing a hearing aid does not, by itself, establish the existence of a hearing disability. The Complainant never complained that his hearing impairment was interfering with his ability to do his job. The Complainant was able to position himself so that he could hear those who were speaking to him. In fact, he asserted that he performed his job well, and that he received a raise for doing good work during his employment. Esau v. Interconnect Communications (LIRC, 04/30/12).

The Complainant was profoundly deaf. The Complainant proposed several accommodations that he believed would have allowed him to perform successfully as an assembler in a plant that assembles truck trailers. The Respondent considered the following proposed accommodations but rejected them as ineffective: (1) tapping the Complainant on the shoulder, (2) the addition of flashing lights on moving equipment, (3) hand signals, (4) flashlights/laser pointers, (5) written notes and (6) reliance upon vibrations. The Complainant cited no authority for his argument that the Respondent was required to either conduct further research on the accommodation of deaf workers, to have hired a vocational expert, or to have contacted the Job Accommodation Network as part of its duty to engage in an interactive process. Even if the Respondent had been required to consider other possible accommodations raised later on appeal by the Complainant, the Complainant did not prove that any of them would have enabled him to safely and effectively perform the duties of the assembler position. Willis v. Stoughton Trailers (LIRC, 09/04/09).

The record did not support a conclusion that the Respondent had reason to be aware that the Complainant had a prosthetic eye or suffered from glaucoma or cataracts, but only that the Respondent was aware that the Complainant wore glasses. This fact alone would not be sufficient to support a conclusion that the Respondent perceived the Complainant to be disabled. Aman v. Kindred Nursing Centers East (LIRC, 12/16/03).

The Complainant has severe/profound hearing loss. The Respondent denied her the opportunity to “bump” into the marriage license clerk position, as well as related positions on her bumping list because of her disability. The record showed that the Complainant could perform without accommodation those duties of the marriage license clerk position which did not involve the use of the telephone, and that, with the addition of certain office technology, the Complainant could perform certain of the position’s phone-related duties. Removing the phone-related responsibilities of this position or removing certain of these responsibilities and modifying the remainder in concert with the addition of certain office technology, would enable the Complainant to perform sufficient job-related functions of the marriage license clerk position to support a conclusion that these accommodations would have been reasonable ones. Parker v. Dane County (LIRC, 11/10/03), aff’d, sub nom. Dane Co. v. LIRC (Dane Co. Cir. Ct., 07/20/04).

There was probable cause to believe that the Respondent had discharged the Complainant because of handicap where the Respondent was aware that the Complainant was deaf and that the deafness was causing some problems, and where the Complainant was discharged based on a claim that there was not enough work, while at the same time the Respondent sought new employees. Buska v. Central Bldg. Maint. (LIRC, 09/28/95).

The Respondent discriminated against the Complainant on the basis of handicap when it prohibited him from driving scooters and tuggers in the plant because he was deaf. Willett v. Delco Electronics (LIRC, 01/17/90).

The Respondent failed to demonstrate that there was a reasonable probability that a person with uncorrected 20/200 vision, correctable with lenses to 20/20 vision, would be unable safely to perform the duties of a traffic officer in the Sheriff’s Department. The Respondent’s general standard precluding employment of persons with certain vision deficiencies failed to meet the individual evaluation requirement of the statute. The standard was not entitled to automatic deference merely because it was based upon a Law Enforcement Standards Board administrative rule or because it was established with the help of a medical consultant. Grinkey v. Brown Co. Sheriff's Dep’t (LIRC, 02/08/88).

The Complainant was handicapped within the meaning of the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act where he was perceived as being handicapped because he had visual impairment of 96.7% diminution of visual acuity correctable to 20/20 vision which Respondent believed would limit his ability to perform the duties of a traffic patrol officer. Brown County v. LIRC, 124 Wis. 2d 560, 369 N.W.2d 735 (1985).

An employer discriminated in laying off an employee who was legally blind, and who was safely and adequately performing his job duties, without requiring an examination to determine the extent of the employee's visual abilities. Heisel v. Mfr’s Box Co. (LIRC, 10/04/84).

It was handicap discrimination to refuse to rehire a yardman who had a corrective lens which allowed him to meet the visual acuity standards of the small switchyard where he worked because the railroad was applying standards applicable to larger rail yards and did not periodically test the vision of its other employees. Chicago & N.W. R.R. v. LIRC (Roessler) (Eau Claire Co. Cir. Ct., 09/08/82).

Where an employee met the employer's standards for safely and efficiently driving trucks on intrastate runs, it was discrimination to discharge him because of an eye condition because he did not meet federal standards for interstate trucking. Frito-Lay v. LIRC, 95 Wis. 2d 395 (Ct. App. 1980), aff’d, 101 Wis. 2d 169, 303 N.W.2d 668 (1981).

It was not discrimination for an employer to refuse to hire an applicant with less than 20/40 uncorrected vision for the position of firefighter where the employer showed that the applicant's use of contact lenses would keep him from getting up and dressed within thirty seconds of an alarm. However, it was discrimination to refuse to process the same person's application for police officer where the applicant met the minimum vision requirements with the aid of those lenses. City of Madison v. LIRC (Scott) (Dane Co. Cir. Ct., 10/22/79).

An employee who was denied consideration for a job transfer because he failed a hearing exam was discriminated against where his employer could not explain the need for the exam and the employee had normal hearing with a hearing aide. Martin v. Consolidated Papers (LIRC, 02/22/79).

An employer could not justify the vision standards it used to discharge a probationary employee where it did not introduce any statistical or medical study to validate its use of a less stringent standard for current employees. Chicago & N.W. Transport v. DILHR (Doetze) (Dane Co. Cir. Ct., 05/12/78).

An employer's testing procedure did not adequately evaluate a welder applicant's visual impairment. A.O. Smith v. LIRC (Perry) (Milwaukee Co. Cir. Ct., 12/13/79); also, Graf v. Babcock & Wilcox (DILHR, 12/12/76).