Light-Duty Assignments When An Employee Is Simultaneously Protected Under FMLA, ADA, And Workers’ Compensation Laws

12/15/2025

When an employee is simultaneously protected under FMLA, ADA, and Workers' Compensation laws, employers must address issues related to offering light-duty assignments.

For instance, employers can offer light-duty work to an employee, but the employee is not required during the 12-week period of FMLA leave to accept it. The employee can, of course, accept the light-duty assignment voluntarily.

If the employee does accept the light-duty assignment voluntarily, the employee will not lose FMLA job restoration rights when 12 weeks have elapsed, unless this includes all FMLA leave to which the employee was entitled and the period of light-duty. He or she may still have the right to reinstatement to the original job under the ADA once he or she is able to perform all the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation.

If the employee refuses the offer of light-duty work in favor of taking leave, he or she may then forfeit Workers' Compensation benefits as dictated by the relevant state Workers' Compensation law.

Generally, this means that the employee would lose Workers' Compensation income replacement benefits, but likely not Workers' Compensation medical benefits. In such a case, the employer could require that the employee use available sick or vacation time (or other similar employer-provided benefit) concurrently with the leave – and if the employer does not require this concurrency, the employee can choose to draw available sick or vacation pay during the leave.

These leave/pay/benefit trade-offs should be described in writing on the employee's FMLA specific notice so that he or she is made fully aware of the consequences of his or her choices.

Simultaneously, the employer must also analyze to what extent the offering of light-duty work may satisfy the ADA requirement of offering reasonable accommodation to the employee's job.

In some cases, the modification of a job to constitute "light-duty work" may in itself constitute a reasonable accommodation – meaning that essentially "permanent light-duty" work may be a necessary accommodation for the employer to provide.