Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—6th Cir.: Nonprofit case manager who requested remote work accommodation can’t revive ADA claims, (Nov 3, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

After a flood in the nonprofit’s office building, the employee argued that the air quality was to blame for her various ailments and requested the ability to work remotely.

Applying the updated standard for a disability-based hostile work environment claim after Muldrow and McNeal, the Sixth Circuit, affirming summary judgment against the ADA claim of a case manager for a nonprofit organization who had requested to work remotely due to concerns of mold in the building, found she failed to show that due to harassment, her work environment was “objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive.” Noting further a lack of evidence showing that onsite file management was anything but essential, the court also affirmed summary judgment against her adverse employment action and failure-to-accommodate claims. The court also declined to revive her retaliation-based claims (Kellar v. The Yunion, Inc., No. 25-1136 (6th Cir. Oct. 31, 2025)).

After working as an independent contractor for the nonprofit, which provides educational programming and family services to at-risk youth in the Detroit area, the plaintiff was hired as a full-time case manager responsible for monitoring students who worked with the company’s diversion department. When the company’s office building flooded in 2019, a professional cleaner was brought in to remediate potentially hazardous conditions.

Part-time. Skeptical about the building’s safety and suffering from a runny nose, sore throat, sinusitis, and headaches, the employee decided to work remotely. In support, she sent two doctor’s notes but neither said that offsite work was medically necessary. She requested an accommodation and suggested that interns could perform her onsite case file management duties. Her employer ultimately offered to allow her to work remotely as a part-time employee, which she did for approximately three weeks until additional test results proved the building was safe.

Complaints. During this time, the company increased another employee’s hours to perform the case file management duties as it was preparing for an onsite audit from the county and its funding was contingent on satisfactory county audits. The employee filed complaints with the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. She also filed complaints with the Michigan Department of Labor claiming the company failed to reimburse her for mileage and failed to provide her with paystubs.

In September 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the county informed the company it could no longer provide virtual services. As a result, the company offered the employee an independent contractor position with substantially less hours. As an alternative, it offered her a severance package. When she refused to accept either, her employment was effectively terminated.

Lower court proceedings. She then sued under the ADA, claiming discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination. The district court granted summary judgment against all claims.

Hostile work environment. Addressing on appeal the employee’s assertion that she was subjected to a hostile work environment due to her disability because the company denied her mileage reimbursement request, failed to timely provide paystubs, reduced her hours and rate of pay, revoked her benefits and paid holidays, and sent her a text insinuating she would be fired, the Sixth Circuit noted that after the district court granted summary judgment to her employer, the appeals court decided McNeal v. City of Blue Ash. Pursuant to McNeal, observed the court, courts can now consider discrete, separately actionable adverse employment actions as evidence contributing to a hostile work environment and plaintiffs are no longer required to show unreasonable interference with work performance to mount a claim.

New standard. And while McNeal came shortly after the Supreme Court’s Muldrow decision, it “did not discard the objective standard that stands as a core requirement to hostile-work-environment claims,” said the court. But now, the court continued, “after Muldrow and McNeal, courts cannot require a plaintiff to show that he suffered a heightened level of harm to succeed on a hostile-work-environment claim. For a disability-based hostile-work-environment claim, said the court, the standard is as follows: “a plaintiff must show that (1) he is disabled; (2) he ‘was subjected to harassment, either through words or actions, based on’ his disability; (3) the harassment ‘create[ed] an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment’ that “produce[d] ‘some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment’; and (4) ‘there is some basis of liability on the part of the employer.’”

Applying that standard to the employee’s claim, the court found she failed to show that, due to harassment based on her disability, her work environment was “objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive.” As to her claim based on the denial of her mileage reimbursement request, the company relied on company policy in doing so and there was no evidence the denial was improper or was based on selective enforcement. And while the company did fail to provide her with paystubs, it did not provide any of its employees with paystubs until the employee complained. It then corrected its policies and ensured that paystubs were available for all employees.

Regarding the reduction of the employee’s hours and rate of pay, the company did so as part of her temporary accommodation. It also proposed reducing her pay and benefits as part of its plan to shift her to an independent contractor position, but she rejected the offer and there was no evidence the ancillary effects of the decision to offer her an independent contractor role, or the way in which the company presented this option, contributed to a hostile environment.

The employee also pointed to a text message from the company’s executive director during the negotiations for the remote work accommodation insinuating that she would be fired but she did not provide any evidence that called into question the director’s frustration with what was perceived as the employee’s unexcused absences, any evidence indicating the text message was strategically deployed as harassment, or any evidence showing the ancillary effects of the text message contributed to a hostile work environment. There was simply no evidence beyond her own conclusory statements, said the court, indicating the work environment produced some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment.

Essential job function. Turning to the employee’s adverse employment action and failure-to-accommodate claims, the court noted that to succeed on either, she had to show she could perform the job’s essential functions with a reasonable accommodation. While she requested the opportunity to work from home for an extended period of time, there was evidence case managers had to be onsite to perform essential functions of the job. Specifically, to comply with the parameters of the county’s funding contract, the company was required to keep hard copies of each case file in a locked cabinet onsite and the county had the right to audit the files “without prior notice.” Because the company’s funding was conditioned on satisfactory county audits, onsite case file management—which ensured the records were complete and accurate—was a crucial part of the job, the court explained.

In addition, at the time the employee requested her remote work accommodation, the company was preparing for an upcoming audit and case managers were expected to “fine-tooth-comb their files.” As to the employee’s assertion that interns could have handled her case management responsibilities, her request for the company to reallocate this essential function of her job to others was not reasonable, the court stated, finding that she could not perform the essential functions of her job even with her proposed accommodation.

Retaliation claims. The employee also argued that the company reduced her pay, hours, and benefits in retaliation for her accommodation request. But while the company shifted her to part-time work when she could not perform the onsite functions of her job, which did reduce her hours, this was the accommodation she requested, the court observed, and the act of granting an employee’s request would not dissuade a reasonable person from seeking an accommodation request.

To the extent she argued her termination was in retaliation for her accommodation request, she requested the accommodation in September and October 2019 and continued to work for more than a year, which was sufficient to defeat her contention that temporal proximity established causation.

Finally, as to her claim her various work-related complaints to the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Michigan Department of Labor constituted protected activity, she again failed to provide evidence of causation, said the court. And even if she could establish a prima facie case, the company argued that it reduced her hours due to her accommodation request and it presented her with the option to accept an independent contractor position due to budget constraints and she failed to provide any evidence of pretext.

Accordingly, the court affirmed summary judgment against the employee’s claims.

The case is No. 25-1136.

Judge: McKeague, D.

Attorneys: Carla D. Aikens (Law Offices of Carla D. Aikens) for LaNetra Kellar. Todd Russell Perkins (Perkins Law Group) for The Yunion, Inc.

Companies: The Yunion, Inc.

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