No. The federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals advised recently in a decision as follows: "The employee is not required to use magic words such as "accommodaton" and "disability"; rather, [the question is] whether "a factfinder could infer that [the interaction between employee and employer] constituted a request for an accommodation."" The case is Fisher v. Nissan N.A., Inc.

This is a commonsense rule that boils down to something like this: did the employee provide enough information to the employer that a reasonable person would have understood that the employee was stating or explaining that a disability he or she had required an accommodation? If so, the employer needs to respond and work in good faith with the employee to figure out if an accommodation can be devised.

Lexington, Kentucky disability lawyer Robert Abell represents individuals and employees in ADA and disability discrimination cases; contact him at 859-254-7076.