Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—11th Cir.: ATF employee who agreed to demotion as an accommodation cannot revive claim, (Aug 21, 2026)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

“The ADA and Rehabilitation Act do not demand that an employer create a disability-specific program to accommodate an employee when an existing program already provides the accommodation that the employee needs.”

Affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against an ATF employee’s Rehabilitation Act claim for failure to accommodate, the Eleventh Circuit determined that the employee was offered a reasonable accommodation—using her available paid time off. Instead, the employee repeatedly requested that she be allowed to take unpaid leave for the sole reason that she preferred not to take her accumulated hours, a reason that had nothing to do with her disability. As to her demotion, the court found no evidence she was coerced into accepting the offer and she had at least one alternative accommodation available to her—using her paid leave. This argument, explained the court, wrongly presupposed that her employer had a duty to provide unpaid leave (Kingsolver v. U.S. Attorney General, No. 25-10656 (11th Cir. Aug. 20, 2026)).

For several years, the employee in this case worked in a GS-7 position. After a desk audit found she was working above her grade level, she was promoted to a GS-9 position.

Increased stress. Following her promotion, the employee began to experience increased work-related stress, exacerbating her depression and cardiac arrythmia.

Accommodation requests. The employee complained to her supervisors, and requested leave without pay, a lateral transfer, or anything else that would help mitigate her symptoms. She was told she could not take leave without pay but instead had to exhaust her roughly 240 hours of paid annual and sick leave. She responded that she wanted to save her paid leave in case of a family emergency.

Over the next several months, the employee continued to request one of the three accommodations. She was told leave without pay was not an option and the only available position for which she was qualified was a GS-7 position. Eventually, the employer agreed to move her to an office with a window and to permit her liberal use of her paid time off. These accommodations did not resolve her issues.

Demotion. At one point, the employee learned that several GS-9 positions might open up in the coming weeks. She decided to wait before submitting a written request for accommodation. While waiting, her stress did not resolve and at one point she had to leave work due to chest pains. After several weeks passed with no open positions, the employee filed a written request for accommodation, requesting transfer to a comparable position. Two days later, she was assigned new duties that she felt were appropriate for a GS-12 level.

After the assignment of her new duties, the employee called her supervisor in tears, again requesting leave without pay or a lateral transfer. Her supervisor responded that only a GS-7 position was available and the employee could not take leave without pay. The employee made the same requests a week later. In response, her supervisor told her she could take the GS-7 position, but she would need an answer by the end of the day. The employee talked it over with her husband that evening and agreed to the demotion the following day. Upon taking the GS-7 position, her symptoms improved.

Lawsuit. Subsequently, the employee filed this lawsuit alleging the government had violated the Rehabilitation Act by failing to accommodate her. The district court granted the government’s motion for summary judgment, finding she had not been coerced into accepting the demotion, her request for a lateral transfer was unreasonable because that would require the employer to create a new position, and her request for unpaid leave was also unreasonable. This appeal followed.

Two issues. The district court had assumed without deciding that the employee was disabled and a qualified individual. For the sake of this appeal, the court here did the same. The employee contended that there were disputes of material fact about whether she experienced disability discrimination because the employer failed to provide her with a reasonable accommodation. She also argued that there was evidence her acceptance of the demotion was coerced.

According to the court, it was confronted with two issues. First, whether the employer had a duty to offer other accommodations to the employee in addition to the flexible use of her paid time off and a GS-7 transfer. Second, whether the employee’s decision to accept the demotion as an accommodation was coerced such that it was an act of disability discrimination. The court addressed each issue in turn.

“Help.” As to the first issue, the employee alleged she had made three kinds of accommodation requests in addition to her demotion request: (1) general “help;” (2) lateral transfer to a comparable position; and (3) leave without pay.

Addressing her first request for “help,” the court explained that this was not a specific request. While an employer has a duty to engage in the interactive process to provide a reasonable accommodation, that duty is triggered only when an employee makes a specific demand. Requesting undefined “help” is not specific and thus does not trigger this duty, said the court.

Lateral transfer. With regard to the employee’s request for a lateral transfer to a position that did not exist, the court found this to be unreasonable as a matter of law. Employers are not required to create new positions or displace other employees to accommodate a disabled employee, explained the court. Because there was no evidence that comparable GS-9 positions existed when the employee requested a lateral transfer, the employer would have had to create a new position, which is unreasonable, said the court.

Leave without pay. Also unreasonable was the employee’s request to take leave without pay in lieu of using her accumulated paid time off. The employee had requested leave “simply to get away from the stress and get herself together.” The employer’s offer of taking paid leave under its policies was a reasonable accommodation to that request, observed the court.

Nothing about the employee’s disability required the employer to offer her unpaid leave in addition to her existing paid leave, explained the court. The employee never suggested that her 240 hours of paid leave were insufficient, only that she preferred not to use those hours. In addition, whether the leave was paid or unpaid had no bearing on the usefulness of the accommodation, as neither option affected the employee’s ability to “get away from the stress and get herself together.” Further, her reasons for refusing the offer of paid leave had nothing to do with her disability.

An offer of reasonable accommodation was made when the employer offered the employee flexible use of her paid leave time. The employee declined to accept the offer. “The ADA and Rehabilitation Act do not demand that an employer create a disability-specific program to accommodate an employee when an existing program already provides the accommodation that the employee needs,” said the court, finding the employer did not have a duty to provide the other accommodations requested by the employee.

Coercion? Next, the court considered the employee’s claim she was discriminated against because she was coerced into accepting a demotion because of her disability. The court was not persuaded.

Several factors are taken into consideration when evaluating whether an employer coerced an employee, explained the court, including whether the employee had any alternatives, whether the employee understood the nature of the choice, and whether the employee had the advice of counsel and time to decide.

Here, the undisputed facts established that the employee had at least one alternative accommodation—using her paid leave. The court noted that the record also reflected that she understood the nature of her choice because she had been aware for several weeks before accepting the demotion that there were no open GS-9 positions. When a GS-7 position became available, the employee’s supervisor gave her several hours to consider it.

As to the employee’s contention she was coerced into requesting a demotion by the employer’s decision to deny her request for unpaid leave, the court explained that this argument wrongly presupposed that her employer had a duty to provide unpaid leave. The employer had no such duty, and no reasonable jury could conclude the employee was coerced into accepting a demotion as an act of disability discrimination. Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary judgment against the employee’s claim was affirmed.

The case is No. 25-10656.

Judge: Brasher, A.

Attorneys: Mary Helen Moses (Law Office of Mary Helen Moses) for Annette Kingsolver. Michael N. Loebl, U.S. Department of Justice, for U.S. Attorney General.

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