A “qualified” individual meets the legitimate skill, experience, education or other job-related requirements of an employment position that the person holds or seeks, and the individual can perform the essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation. Individuals are not unqualified because they’re unable to perform marginal or incidental job functions.1

If the individual is qualified to perform essential job functions except for limitations caused by a disability, you must consider if the individual could perform these functions with a reasonable accommodation. Generally, the courts consider a written job description as evidence, though not necessarily conclusive, of the job’s essential functions.

You’re free to select the most qualified applicant available and make decisions based on reasons unrelated to a disability’s existence or consequence. For example, two people apply for a job opening as a typist. The first has a disability and accurately types 50 words per minute; the second doesn’t have a disability and accurately types 75 words per minute. You can hire the applicant with the faster typing speed if typing speed is necessary to successfully perform the job.

You aren’t required to hire or retain an individual who isn’t qualified to perform the job.

1. 29 CFR sec. 1630.2(m); 2 CCR sec 11065(o); Lab. Code sec. 12926(f)