Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—11th Cir.: Fired animal services probationer with brain tumor failed to show disability discrimination, (Dec 16, 2025)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

“[H]er evidence merely indicates that her coworkers were upset and uncooperative with her when she worked from home.”

A Miami-Dade County probationary animal services employee with a brain tumor, masses on her thyroid, and an autoimmune disease, fired for performance issues after she was granted an accommodation to work from home, failed to establish disability discrimination, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in an unpublished opinion. Although a manager said the employee was “not able to give 100% right now” during the meeting at which the employee learned she had failed her probation, the statements did not meet the Eleventh Circuit’s “rigorous standard” for direct evidence of discriminatory intent. There was also no merit to her argument her performance issues were minor, and her circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent merely indicated that her coworkers were upset and uncooperative with her when she worked from home (Laughlin v. Miami-Dade County, No. 24-13284 (11th Cir. Dec. 15, 2025, unpublished)).

Outreach specialist for ASD. In February 2022, the employee was hired as an outreach specialist for the Miami-Dade County Animal Services Department (ASD). Her job duties included booking and hosting pet adoption events at the ASD’s animal shelter and in the community.

Probationary for a year. Upon hiring, she had to complete successfully a 12-month probationary period before attaining civil service status. Probationary employees are evaluated by their supervisors informally rather than through formal performance reviews, and employees who fail probation lose their positions at the ASD.

Health problems, including brain tumor. Several months into her probationary period, the employee began to have health problems: migraines, dizzy spells, ringing in her ears, lightheadedness, difficulty swallowing, and episodes of vomiting. Her doctor diagnosed her with a brain tumor and masses on her thyroid, as well as an autoimmune disease. After receiving these diagnoses, she began to seek medical treatment with specialists, including a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, and a gastroenterologist.

Work-from-home and flexible hours accommodation. She discussed her health problems with her then-supervisor and an HR manager. She was asked to provide documentation about her conditions, and she submitted a nurse’s note that said she had “multiple complex medical issues” and “require[d] time off to work to complete required testing and follow up.” The ASD granted her an accommodation to work from home on some days and to work flexible hours, provided that she worked eight hours each day.

Director unhappy with arrangement. Although the employee had been given permission to work from home, the ASD director was unhappy with her accommodation. The director “wasn’t a fan of people working from home,” and she questioned the employee about her accommodation: “But how long do you think you’re going to be working from home? Is that gonna stop soon? Can we stop that soon?”

Problems with coworkers. The employee also had problems with other coworkers after she became sick and started working from home. She reported that they became less responsive to her emails, less responsive to her calls, and less willing to help her with organizing events. One colleague even explicitly said that she would respond to the employee’s calls or emails only if the employee was working at the office.

MEGA event. In October 2022, the employee helped organize MEGA, the shelter’s largest event of the year, but while planning the event, she allegedly received no assistance from her coworkers, who gave her “the cold shoulder.” The director nonetheless emailed all ASD staff, giving a “SHOUT OUT” to the employee for bringing “her mother and aunt here” and doing “an amazing job with decorations.”

New supervisor and additional problems. In November 2022, the employee was assigned a new supervisor, the ASD shelter program manager. Although the new supervisor allowed the employee to work from home, she organized in-person meetings on days when the employee was not in the office. She also created an events committee but did not place the employee on it, perhaps “in preparation of getting rid of [her],” according to the court.

“[F]aking it”? At one point, the employee overheard the new supervisor telling another colleague “something along th[e] lines” of “you know she’s faking it, right? Being sick. There’s no way she has a brain tumor.”

Deterioration of relationship with coworkers. The employee’s relationship with her coworkers also continued to deteriorate. At “almost every event,” members of the ASD staff complained about her performance. According to the new supervisor, the employee would frequently forget to do things at events and then burden other staff to “make up for what she was not doing.” For one event, the supervisor said she had to “scramble last minute” because the employee failed to ensure that a mobile animal clinic vehicle was available.

Credit card receipts incident. Additional issues arose after a December 2022 event. Although the employee was not attending the event, she had signed out a portable credit card machine for the use of a counselor who was working the event. When the employee was in the office at the end of the next week, she made sure that the credit card machine had been returned. The counselor did not, however, return receipts related to the event to ASD’s finance division. Instead, the counselor put the receipts in the employee’s office, and the employee did not know that the receipts were there. They were thus not timely turned in to the finance division, and 12 days after the event, members of the finance division found the receipts on the employee’s desk.

The finance staff complained to the new supervisor, noting that, because the receipts had not been turned in, the finance division was “extremely tardy in completing the reconciliation process and submitting documentation.” The employee did not deny that the receipts were overdue, but said the counselors who worked the events, rather than she, “always handled” the receipts, and that these receipts were put in her office without her knowledge.

Formal performance discussions. Soon after this incident, the new supervisor asked the employee to meet for an informal discussion about her job performance. She asked the HR manager to attend as well. At the meeting, the supervisor explained that she had been receiving complaints from ASD staff about the employee “being unprofessional [and] going into offices and distracting them from work.”

No improvement. According to the new supervisor, the employee’s performance did not improve after the meeting: she allegedly continued to be inefficient when working from home. The supervisor noted one specific day when the employee produced little work output while reporting four hours of work time.

Probationary failure. In January 2023, 11 months into the employee’s 12-month probationary period, the supervisor informed HR that she intended to conclude that the employee had failed the probationary period. HR then prepared a failure-of-probation letter and presented it to the director, who signed it.

Final meeting. Then, the supervisor, an assistant director, and an HR manager met with the employee to tell her that she had failed her probation. At the meeting, the assistant director told her that “unfortunately at this time you’re not able to dedicate all of your time to the work.”

The employee replied by asking if she was being “failed because of my health issues.”

The assistant director replied, “No, because of your performance, but because you’re not able to give 100% right now.” A few minutes later, the assistant director repeated to the employee that the decision “has nothing to do with your -- your health issues... it has to do with the performance that we need from this position and your inability right now to perform at that level.”

Resignation? At the conclusion of the meeting, according to the county, the employee voluntarily resigned. The employee, however, insisted that she had been terminated, and for purposes of the appeal, the Eleventh Circuit assumed that was the case.

Lawsuit. The former employee sued the county, raising, among other claims, disability discrimination claims under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and the FCRA.

Decision below and appeal. The district court granted the county’s motion for summary judgment against her disability discrimination claims. It found the former employee failed to establish that she qualified as having a disability. It also decided that she failed to establish intentional discrimination with sufficient direct or circumstantial evidence, in large part because she could not show that the county’s stated reason for her termination was pretextual. She appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

Direct evidence. The appeals court first found the former employee failed to present direct evidence of discriminatory intent. The employee pointed to the assistant director’s statements at the meeting at which she learned she had failed her probation. At the meeting, the assistant director told her that the ASD needed “more for this position” than she was “able to give at this time” and that she was “not able to give 100% right now.” The assistant director also said she believed it would be “better for [[the employee]] to focus on [herself] and [her] health this—this new year.” She added that the decision “has nothing to do with your -- your health issues... it has to do with the performance that we need from this position and your inability right now to perform at that level.”

The Eleventh Circuit found that these statements “do not show ‘without any inference or presumption’ that [the employee] was terminated because of her disability.” Instead, the assistant director’s statements were “ambiguous and open to interpretation,” said the court. “At most, they ‘merely suggest[], but do[] not prove, a discriminatory motive’… They do not meet our ‘rigorous standard’ for direct evidence of discriminatory intent.’”

Circumstantial evidence and pretext. The former employee also failed to establish circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, according to the appeals court. The county argued, among other things, that ASD staff complained about the employee’s frequent lack of communication and that the ASD finance division complained about her failure to timely submit receipts. The former employee, in turn, failed to show that these stated reasons were false. She submitted, for example, no evidence indicating that the complaints by ASD staff about her lack of communication were never made. She also pointed to no evidence that the substance of the complaints was inaccurate. Finally and notably, in a sworn declaration, she admitted that she did not timely submit receipts to the finance division.

No convincing mosaic. Nor did the former employee establish a claim under the convincing mosaic theory, according to the Eleventh Circuit. She pointed to the assistant director’s statements at the final meeting and “18 additional statements and actions by her colleagues and superiors,” according to the appeals court, evidence indicating “that some ASD staff members made negative comments about [the employee], poorly communicated with her, and refused to help her on her tasks, especially after she began working from home sometimes be-cause of her illnesses.”

The court was unpersuaded: “Taken as a whole… we are not persuaded that [the employee’s] evidence can establish a convincing mosaic of intentional discrimination. Instead, her evidence merely indicates that her coworkers were upset and uncooperative with her when she worked from home. Indeed, they believed she performed poorly after she started working from home.”

The former employee thus “failed to make a claim with her circumstantial evidence,” and the district court’s grant of summary judgment was affirmed.

The case is No. 24-13284.

Judge: Per Curiam.

Attorneys: Christopher Scott Prater (Pollard) for Emily Laughlin. William X. Candela, Miami-Dade County Attorney's Office, for Miami-Dade County.

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