Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—3d Cir.: Employee’s age, disability, and failure-to-accommodate claims failed to survive summary judgment, (Feb 10, 2025)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

Even if the employee had demonstrated a prima facie case of age discrimination, she failed to show that the employer’s reason for terminating her was pretextual, since she admitted that her termination stemmed from her failure to return to in-office work after COVID.

The Third Circuit has affirmed the holding of a federal district court that an employee’s age and disability discrimination claims, and claims for failure to accommodate did not survive summary judgment. The employee failed to establish a prima facie case of disability discrimination because she failed to show that she could perform the essential functions of her job, with or without reasonable accommodation, the appeals court determined, in an unpublished decision. And the employee’s age discrimination claim failed because there was insufficient evidence that a similarly situated, substantially younger employee was treated more favorably (Galette v. Avenue 365 Lending Services LLC, No. 24-1221, (3d Cir. Feb. 7, 2025, unpublished)).

Remote work. In 2012, the employee began working for the Avenue 365, a title insurance and settlement company. She was hired as a “funding specialist” and initially worked in office but, following the arrival of COVID-19 in March 2020, company employees began working from home. Only three funding department staff—the employee not among them—could print and scan checks outside the office. By July 2020, the employer discontinued remote printing and scanning, and the funding specialists returned to the office.

The employee, however, continued working remotely because of a recently diagnosed medical condition. The employer then required all funding specialists to work in office full time by July 2021. The employee was informed that she would need to return to the office or provide an updated medical certification to justify her need to work remotely. The employee provided the documentation, and she was approved to work remotely through December 2021.

Accommodation request. In January 2022, the employee requested to permanently extend her work-from-home accommodation. But the employer informed her that she would be terminated if she did not return to the office. When the employee did not return, she was in fact terminated. The employer did not replace her and in 2022 implemented a company-wide hiring freeze and underwent several reductions in force. The employee sued, alleging violations of the ADA, ADEA, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA). A federal district court in Pennsylvania granted summary judgment to the employer on all claims. The current appeal ensued.

Disability discrimination claim. The employee failed to establish a prima facie case of disability discrimination, the Third Circuit determined, because she failed to show she could perform the essential functions of a funding specialist, with or without reasonable accommodation.

The employer considered a funding specialist’s essential functions to include “printing, scanning and disbursing checks, releasing wires, facilitating the timely funding of loans, handling files disbursed by third-party partners, overnighting checks, booking or posting wires and deposits, handling mail, answering emails, making phone calls, and handling attorney wires.” It put forth a funding specialist job description that echoed those functions, and claimed that by 2021, the only functions that could be performed at home were “answering emails, making phone calls, and handling attorney wires.”

The employee argued that three other employees who were operating as funding specialists worked remotely and did not perform the same functions that the employer alleged were essential. But those employees were improper comparators, the court determined. One had a different title, senior funding specialist, and had a different skill set and provided a different level of experience. And unlike the employee, who had completed these duties in the office for nearly a decade prior to the pandemic, the other two comparators were hired to work remotely because the employer “could not find enough people to join the funding team locally.” Moreover, one comparator left the company approximately five months before the employee’s termination and the other was part of a reduction in force seven months after the termination. Accordingly, there was no genuine dispute that the essential functions of a funding specialist were those outlined by the employer.

Nor could the employee perform these essential functions, with or without reasonable accommodation, the Third Circuit found. Because only three of a funding specialist’s essential functions could be completed remotely, the employee could not perform certain essential functions of her position without reasonable accommodation. She claimed, however, that the only accommodation needed was to be provided with a printer to accomplish those functions remotely. But the burdens of an accommodation cannot be “clearly disproportionate to the benefits that it will produce,” the court said. And the employer discontinued the remote printing and scanning of checks almost five years earlier due to security concerns, such that the “proposed accommodation would impose a wholly impractical obligation.” Accordingly, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on the employee’s disability discrimination claim, the Third Circuit determined.

Failure to accommodate claim. The shortcomings of the employee’s disability discrimination claim similarly forestalled her failure to accommodate claim. A failure to accommodate claim requires the employee to show that she is “qualified to perform the essential functions of the job.” As discussed above, the employee failed to meet her burden to show that she was otherwise qualified for her position, because she could not demonstrate that she was able to perform the essential functions of her job. And an employer is “not required to accommodate an employee by removing an essential function or restructuring a job so as to avoid it.” Because the employee could not sustain a failure to accommodate claim, the district Court properly granted summary judgment.

Age discrimination claim. As for her age discrimination claim, the employee failed to show that she was terminated “more likely than not based on the consideration of impermissible factors.” She claimed this element was satisfied because other “substantially younger” funding specialists (including at least one working remotely) remained employed when she was terminated. However, said the court, because the employee was “not able to perform all of the duties of a funding specialist at home,” she did not have “the same job responsibilities” as in-office funding specialists, rendering them improper comparators.

It was true that a substantially younger funding specialist who worked remotely, was not terminated at the same time as the employee. But “evidence of more favorable treatment cannot be viewed in a vacuum” and instead “the record must be viewed as a whole.” And although not terminated in April 2022 alongside the employee, the younger comparator was part of a reduction in force only seven months later. Taken together, there was insufficient evidence that a similarly situated, substantially younger employee was treated more favorably.

The employee pointed to an advertisement for a remote funding specialist position, posted one month after she was terminated, as evidence of impermissible factors considered in her termination. However, the court noted that the employer had not hired anyone since 2021, and in 2022 implemented a company-wide hiring freeze and implemented several force reductions. So, while the employer may have posted an advertisement, it was not seeking applicants.

Moreover, said the court, even if the employee had demonstrated a prima facie case of age discrimination, she failed to show that the employer’s reason for terminating her was pretextual. Indeed, in testimony, she admitted that her termination stemmed from her failure to return to in-office work. Thus, the Third Circuit held that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on her age discrimination claim.

Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary judgment on all claims was affirmed.

The case is No. 24-1221.

Judge: Matey, P.

Attorneys: Andrew S. Abramson (Abramson Employment Law) Susan Galette. Mark W. Bakker (Maynard Nexsen) for Avenue 365 Lending Services LLC.

Companies: Avenue 365 Lending Services LLC

Cases: Discrimination DisabilityDiscrimination AgeDiscrimination DelawareNews NewJerseyNews PennsylvaniaNews