Plаintiff Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and plaintiff-inter-venor Ahmet Yigit Demirelli sought relief against Demirelli’s former employer, Con-vergys Customer Management Group, Inc. (“Convergys”), alleging that Convergys failed to accommodate Demirelli’s disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). A jury found for the plaintiffs, awarding Demirelli lost wages and compensatory damages. The district court 1 denied Con-vergys’s motions for judgment as a matter of law and for remittur. Convergys appeals. We affirm.
I. Background
Convergys provides customer-service assistance on behalf of corporate clients. In January 2001, Convergys hired Demi-relli as a call representative. Demirelli, confined to a wheelchair due to a rare condition commonly known as brittle bone disease, answered telephone calls from customers of Convergys’s clients.
To keep its call stations consistently attended, Convergys maintains a strict tardy policy. Convergys penalizes employees who are more than three minutes late eithеr reporting for work at the company’s call center or returning from their 30-minute lunch break. Employees with 14 or more violations in a single year could be disciplined. Potential sanctions range from a written warning to termination of employment.
For the first year of his employment, Demirelli often reported for work and returned from lunch late. Records show that Demirelli was late reporting for work 37 times and late returning from lunch 65 times — far in excess of Convergys’s 14 tardy allowance. Demirelli’s tardiness reporting to work stemmed from the lack of adequate handicapped parking at Conver-gys’s call center. The call center’s large parking area only had two van-accessible, handicapped parking spaces — spaces large enough for a special-needs van to operate a ramp or motorized lift. These two spaces were usually occupied when Demi-relli arrived, thus causing him to either wait for the space to become unoccupied or find an alternative parking space.
Demirelli made unsuccessful efforts to reduce his tardiness for work. Specifically, Demirelli tried arriving at work earlier — at one point arriving nearly an hour early — however, the two parking spots were still usually occupied. Demirelli then began parking at a nearby movie theater, but traveling via wheelchair from the theater’s parking lot to the call center took over 10 minutes and caused Demirelli considerable physical pain. Finally, Demirelli requested different hours hoping that one of the two special-needs parking spaces might be available at a later hour. But even during a later wоrk-shift, the two *794 special-needs spots were still occasionally-occupied.
Demirelli’s condition and the layout of Convergys’s call center hampered an on-time lunch return. Convergys’s call center is a maze of hundreds of cubicles where individual call representatives answer customer calls. Cubicles are not assigned to specific call representatives; when call represеntatives report for work or return from lunch, they claim the first cubicle that they can find. Most employees simply look over the top of the rows of cubicles to find an available workstation. However, this option was not available to the wheelchair-confined Demirelli. He was forced to examine each workstаtion. This time-consuming exercise was exacerbated by narrow aisles, making it difficult for Demirelli to navigate obstacles such as stray chairs or chatting colleagues. His search was further complicated by the fact that not every workstation was fully operational; occasionally, a workstation would be available but missing a headset or other necessary equipment.
Initially, Demirelli’s supervisor reserved a workstation for him. However, after a few months, Demirelli’s supervisor was replaced. His new supervisor refused to reserve a workstation for him. A few months before his termination, Demirelli began seating himself at workstations reserved for training. His supervisors expressed their displeasure with him sitting there but did not require him to move. When his supervisors approached him to discuss his tardies, Demirelli explained that he was having problems finding a parking space and a workstation. He asked that he be given “a grace period” — a few extra minutes to return from lunch to work. Convergys denied this request. On June 27, 2002, Convergys terminated De-mirelli’s employment.
Demirelli filed a timely claim with the EEOC, which in turn brought this enforcement action pursuant to its authority under 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e — 5(f)(1) and (3). Demirelli intervened as a plaintiff pursuant to § 2000e — 5(f)(1). The matter proceeded to trial, and a jury found for the plaintiffs, awarding Demirelli $14,265.22 in lost wages and $100,000 in other compensatory damages.
II. Discussion
Convеrgys appeals the district court’s denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law, averring that it cannot be held liable for failure to accommodate De-mirelli because he did not request a specific, reasonable accommodation. In the alternative, Convergys avers that Demirelli’s proposed aсcommodations were unreasonable. 2 Convergys also challenges the award and amount of compensatory damages.
A. Judgment as a Matter of Law
We review de novo the denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law.
Henderson v. Simmons Foods, Inc.,
1. The Interactive Process
Convergys avers that, as a matter of law, an employer cannot be held liable for failing to accommodate a disabled employee who has not requested a specific, reasonable accommodation. Similarly, Con-vergys avers that the district court erred when it declined to instruct the jury that Demirelli was required to request a specific accommodation. We hold that the district court did not err.
Our case law has established a shared responsibility between employers and employees to resolve accommodation requests. A disabled employee must initiate the accommodation-seeking process by making his employer aware of the need for an accommodation.
Cannice v. Norwest Bank Iowa N.A.,
Once the employer is made aware of the legitimate need for an accommodation, the employer must “make a reasonable effort to determine the appropriate accommodation.”
Cannice,
Demirelli testified at trial that he requested an accommodation becаuse of limitations created by his wheelchair, thus meeting his initial burden. The record does not show, however, that Convergys fulfilled its obligation to explore possible accommodations for Demirelli’s disability. In fact, the record evidence shows that Demirelli assumed Convergys’s responsibility by offering several potential accommodаtions, including a few extra minutes to return from lunch. Demirelli thus exceeded what disabled employees at the initial stage of the interactive process must do. Convergys’s argument thus attempts to place the entire responsibility of fashioning an accommodation upon Demirelli.
Convergys points to
Kratzer v. Rockwell Collins, Inc.,
We hold that Demirelli was not required to more specifically request accommodation. Accordingly, the district court did not err by denying Convergys’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. Similarly, the district court did not err by declining to instruct the jury that Demirelli was required to request a specific accommodation.
2. Reasonable Accommodation
Convergys avers that any accommodation that provided Demirеlli with extra time was unreasonable because it required Convergys to eliminate the essential punctuality requirement. We disagree. There is no precise test for what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, but an accommodation is unreasonable if it requires the employer to eliminate an essential function of the job.
Buckles v. First Data Res., Inc.,
The district court determined that punctuality is an essential job function. In order to fulfill this essential job function, the record evidence is clear that Demirelli requested an extra 15 minutes to return from his lunch break. 3 Viewing the еvidence in a light most favorable to the jury verdict, we believe that an extra 15 minutes is a reasonable accommodation. First, Convergys puts forth no evidence showing that extending Demirelli’s lunch break by 15 minutes would eliminate its punctuality requirement. An additional 15 minutes would merely create a different time for Demirelli to return from his lunch break. Cоntrary to Convergys’s assertion, this modified work schedule would not create an open-ended schedule where Demi-relli would be free to return from lunch at his pleasure or at unpredictable times. Second, the record evidence also shows that by granting Demirelli an extra 15 minutes, 62 of Demirelli’s 65 lunch tardies would have been eliminated. Lastly, the ADA itself recognizes extra time as a reasonable accommodation. “[R]easonable accommodation may include ... job re *797 structuring; part-time or modified work schedules.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B) (emphasis added); see also 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2.
Accordingly, we believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the jury’s conclusion that the accommodations proposed by Demirelli were reasonablе.
B. Damages
Convergys avers that the district court erred by permitting the jury to award Demirelli $100,000 in compensatory damages and erred by denying its motion for remitter.
1. Compensatory Damages
A plaintiff may seek compensatory damages under the ADA for emotional distress.
Foster v. Time Warner Entm’t Co.,
The record evidence shows that Demirelli suffered significant emotional injuries as a result of his wrongful termination. Demirelli testified that the termination caused him severe depression and anxiety. That, as a result of the depression, he became isolated, ashamed, and gained a significant amount of weight. Convergys does not dispute this evidence but merely argues that it acted in good faith.
Whether Convergys acted in good faith is a question for the jury in which Convergys bears the burden of proof.
Landrum v. Moats,
2. Remittur
We review the denial of remittur for abuse of discretion and “will grant a remitter only in cases where the jury’s award is so grossly excessive as to shock the court’s conscience.”
Duty v. Norton-Alcoa Proppants,
We vest with the jury the responsibility of quantifying emotional damages because the jury has the “benefit of observation of plaintiff in considering and deter
*798
mining a fair allowance for her emotional distress and humiliation.”
Block v. R.H. Macy & Co., Inc.,
Convergys offers no convincing evidence that the jury’s award of $100,000 for emotional damages shocks the conscience. Basеd upon the record evidence, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion by denying Conver-gys’s motion for a remitter.
III. Conclusion
After a careful review of the record, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
Notes
. The Honorable Charles A. Shaw, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
. Convergys also argues, citing
Egbuna v. Time-Life Libraries, Inc.,
. Althоugh an assigned parking place and workspace are other potential accommodations, the parties, at trial and oral argument, relied upon Demirelli's request for extra time as the reasonable accommodation that Con-vergys should have provided. Therefore, it is the only accommodation that we consider.