Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—4th Cir.: Wells Fargo entitled to JMOL on fired director’s disability claims but not retaliation claim, (Aug 24, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“On this record, the jury could reasonably conclude that [the employee’s] termination was retaliation dressed up as a business decision.”

Despite acknowledging the high bar for overturning a jury verdict, the Fourth Circuit found Wells Fargo cleared that bar for three of the four claims brought by a former managing director who was fired not long after requesting a permanent remote work arrangement for his disability—a paralyzed bladder and colon—and who was awarded $22M by the jury. Though the court affirmed the district court’s denial of judgment as a matter of law on his ADA retaliation claim, it found the employer was entitled to JMOL on his failure-to-accommodate claim and his ADA and state-law disability discharge claims. It also affirmed the portion of the award the retaliation claim sustained. Judge Berner concurred in part and dissented in part (Billesdon v. Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, No. 25-1495 (4th Cir. Aug. 21, 2026)).

Throughout his almost 30-year career with Wells Fargo, the employee managed his paralyzed bladder and colon, rising from intern to managing director. Although for many years he never needed an accommodation, around 2017, doctors advised him to begin using a catheter to empty his bladder and laxatives to empty his bowels and his supervisor accommodated his request to sporadically step away from his desk during the workday.

Relocation. The employee began working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, he considered moving to the firm’s headquarters in North Carolina but the office had only 17 bathroom stalls for the approximately 500 men who worked on the trading floor. When his supervisor assured him that on the days he needed laxatives, he could work from home, he relocated to Charlotte in 2020. That year, he exceeded performance expectations and earned a bonus in the millions.

Formal request. In the summer of 2021, a weak financial market prompted Wells Fargo to begin a reduction in force and by late summer three senior managers compiled a “theoretical list” of the “most expensive” sales managing directors to cut, which included the employee. In August, one of the managers from the list was selected and the senior managers prepared a formal business case for his discharge. Around that same time, Wells Fargo also announced a return-to-office date and the employee’s longtime manager left the company. In August 2021, the employee formally requested to work from home permanently.

When the employee’s new manager, one of the three senior managers who compiled the theoretical list, learned of the request, he told the accommodations management consultant to escalate the matter to one of the other senior managers. Both senior managers asked what they needed to do to push back against his request.

As revenues continued to drop, senior management decided to add a second person—the employee—to the RIF. They did not create a separate business case for his termination. Unaware of this, the employee continued to ask about his accommodation request. In late December, the company delayed the planned return to office indefinitely and management formally closed his accommodation case. In February, Wells Fargo announced a new return to office date in March. The employee was fired at the end of February.

Lower court proceedings. The employee sued under the ADA and state law and his claims proceeded to a jury, which awarded him $6 million in back pay, $14 million in front pay, $100,000 in emotional distress damages, $1 million in punitive damages under the ADA, and $1 million in punitive damages under North Carolina law. Wells Fargo moved for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial. The employee accepted a remittitur reducing the ADA punitive damages to $300,000 and the district court denied the company’s post-trial motions.

Failure to accommodate. Finding on appeal that Wells Fargo was entitled to JMOL on the employee’s failure-to-accommodate claim, the Fourth Circuit explained that he pleaded and tried his claim as a refusal to make “reasonable accommodations” under Section 12112(b)(5)(A) but his termination-based theory invoked Section 12112(b)(5)(B), which separately addresses the denial of an employment opportunity “based on the need... to make reasonable accommodation.” Specifically, said the court, Subparagraph (A), makes it discrimination to “not mak[e] reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations” of a qualified employee while Subparagraph (B) makes it discrimination to “deny[] employment opportunities” to a qualified employee “if such denial is based on the need... to make reasonable accommodation.”

Because the employee pleaded and tried only an (A) claim, the question was whether Wells Fargo withheld a reasonable accommodation while he was employed—not whether it discharged him to avoid accommodating him. A rational jury could not have found for him, the appeals court explained, as he asked to work from home and he was allowed to do so from the day of his request until the day of his discharge. Moreover, when Wells Fargo closed his accommodation case, it did not deny his request. Rather, like many employees at the time, he was permitted to work from home indefinitely and he was told that if the company set a definite return-to-office date, he could open a new case.

Rejecting the employee’s contention that a jury could have found Wells Fargo did not provide him with a reasonable accommodation because it never explicitly granted, implemented, or committed to anything since he did not receive a permanent arrangement, his “indefinite” arrangement remained in place until circumstances required renewed consideration, said the court.

Had the return-to-office date arrived while the employee was still employed, Wells Fargo would have had to provide an effective arrangement or prove undue hardship and calling the arrangement “permanent” would not have changed how telework effectively met his limitations before his discharge or converted an ineffective work-from-home arrangement into an effective one. Based on all this, the court reversed the district court and remanded for entry of JMOL on the failure-to-accommodate claim.

Retaliation. As to the employee’s retaliation claim, a reasonable jury, said the court, could find his remote work accommodation request was a but-for cause of his discharge. The three senior managers learned about his accommodation request in late October and by “October, November, somewhere in there,” they decided to add him to the planned RIF. By November 3, two of the three had concluded that giving him an accommodation trial period would only delay the inevitable. A formal discharge document was prepared in early December and the employee received notice of his termination approximately two months after management added him to the business case, compared to a typical lead time of at least five months.

There was also evidence that while one of the senior managers previously told the employee he would receive a stellar review for 2021, the senior manager downgraded the employee’s evaluation from “exceeds” expectations to “meets” expectations despite his record sales numbers. Though Wells Fargo pointed to the layoffs of similarly situated employees, both before and after the employee was fired, this, said the court, could support the inference that Wells Fargo genuinely needed to cut costs. But it also did not disprove the employee’s theory. “The additional layoffs do not establish that [the employee] would have been discharged in this particular fashion but for his request to work remotely.” Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s denial of Well’s Fargo’s post-trial motions on this claim.

Disability discrimination. Wells Fargo was entitled, however, to JMOL on the employee’s ADA and state-law disability-discharge claims, said the court, pointing out that the senior managers all knew he had a medical condition before his accommodation request, one knew that his disability required the use of catheters years before the request, and another had known about this disability for at least a decade. Further, observed the court, there was no evidence of intentional discrimination during the time Wells Fargo knew about his disability but before he made his accommodation request.

“What changed,” said the court, “was his formal request for an accommodation. That timing indicates that the termination was downstream of the protected act, not the protected status,” which supported retaliation, not discrimination.

Remedies. Because only the employee’s ADA retaliation claim survived, the court vacated the awards of punitive damages under North Carolina law, punitive damages under the ADA, and emotional-distress damages. As to front and back pay, the court found they remain available as equitable remedies for retaliation under the ADA, back pay remedies his loss between discharge and judgment, and front pay remedies his loss after judgment in lieu of reinstatement. Because the jury’s awards of back and front pay rested on the compensation he lost due to his unlawful discharge, the court found the retaliation verdict alone could support them.

The court found, however, that the $6 million backpay award could not be reconciled with the trial evidence and thus it vacated that award and granted a new trial on damages unless the employee accepted a remittitur reducing the backpay award to $4,225,558. The front pay award, however, was within the range of evidence presented to the jury and thus the court allowed that award to stand.

Partial dissent. Judge Berner disagreed with the majority’s conclusions regarding the employee’s federal and state-law disability discrimination claims and the jury’s calculation of the back-pay award. She would have affirmed the jury’s verdicts on the employee’s claims of disability discrimination and its back-pay calculation.

The case is No. 25-1495.

Judge: Richardson, J.

Attorneys: Stephen John Petrany (Jones Day) for Wells Fargo Securities, LLC. L. Michelle Gessner (GessnerLaw) for Christopher John Billesdon.

Companies: Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

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