Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—8th Cir.: Air Force commissary employee who struggled with work cannot advance claims, (Aug 18, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

His father, not a doctor, completed a request for a reasonable accommodation form outlining his son’s purported disabilities.

Affirming a district court’s grant of summary judgment against the disability, race, and gender discrimination claims brought by a former Air Force commissary employee, the Eighth Circuit found the employee had failed to produce sufficient evidence showing he was “disabled” within the meaning of the Rehabilitation Act. Although the employee and his father met with management at one point to discuss providing the employee with extra training and time to complete tasks, he at no point disclosed having a disability and failed to identify any impairments from which he suffered. In addition, an accommodation request form was filled out by the employee’s father, and the diagnoses contained therein were not substantiated by a doctor (Yelder v. Hegseth, No. 24-2731 (8th Cir. Aug. 15, 2025)).

The employee worked in the produce department at a Department of Defense commissary at Offutt Air Force Base from October 17, 2016, to August 1, 2019.

Meeting with father. Several months into his employment, the employee’s father requested a meeting with management to communicate his son’s concerns. He advised management that his son needed support from his team to be more productive and to succeed in his role. The father also stated that his son had a disability. However, he never identified or explained the nature of his son’s disability, and the employee himself had never stated or acknowledged that he had a disability. In fact, when his father said he had a disability, he looked at the employee who then shook his head “no.”

Ultimately, management agreed that the employee be allowed more time to complete tasks and that he would receive additional training.

Resignation. On August 1, 2019, the employee asked his supervisor if he could take his lunch break. She asked him whether he had completed his duties in the warehouse. He stated that he still had two pallets to take care of. She told him that he could take his break after completing those tasks.

A few minutes later, the employee came to the supervisor’s office and said that he did not understand why he could not take lunch. The supervisor reiterated that he could take lunch when he had completed his duties. When the employee expressed disagreement, the supervisor asked him to sit down to have a private conversation.

The supervisor told the employee that if he took a break before completing his tasks, he would be disciplined for insubordination. The employee responded that he did not care and chose to quit. He later submitted a “Memorandum for HR” dated August 1, 2019, in which he alleged the supervisor tried to characterize him as someone who intentionally does not follow instructions and that he was treated unfairly. At no point in the memo did he allege that he asked for or failed to receive a disability accommodation.

Reasonable accommodation form. After the employee contacted an EEOC counselor, a disability program manager for the commissary advised management to engage in the reasonable accommodation interactive process to determine whether the employee could be reinstated. Management agreed to do so.

Subsequently, the employee submitted a confirmation of request for reasonable accommodation form. His supervisor responded by sending him an ADA-related questionnaire. The questionnaire was returned, signed by a neuropsychologist. The medical diagnoses section included epilepsy and a learning disability. As to how his impairments limited him, that section stated, among other things, that the employee required simple and clear directions along with repetitions to fully comprehend tasks, and a supportive, non-threatening work environment.

After reviewing the completed questionnaire, a manager was unable to find any information to suggest that the employee’s purported diagnoses would lead him to act in a manner that led to his resignation. Thus, the interactive process ended with no resolution, and the employee subsequently filed this lawsuit asserting claims under the Rehabilitation Act and Title VII for disability, race, and gender discrimination. He also stated a claim for failure to accommodate and a hostile work environment. The district court granted summary judgment against all claims and this appeal followed.

Evidence of disability. First, the court addressed the employee’s disability discrimination claim. The government contended that the record contained insufficient evidence the employee had a disability, noting that the record contained no applications to corroborate testimony by the employee’s father that the employee had self-disclosed a disability on his application. The court agreed that there were no applications in the record to substantiate this testimony.

Further, the government pointed out that neither the employee nor his father conveyed during their meeting with management that nature of the employee’s disability. The court agreed that the employee’s father stating that his son had a disability, followed by the employee shaking his head “no” was insufficient to show that he suffered from a disability limiting a major life activity.

Finally, the government argued that the employee’s claim lacked evidence for his contention that he had a disability because the relevant portions of the completed questionnaire addressing the employee’s disabilities were not authored by a medical doctor, but by his father. The court’s review of the record supported this conclusion. Because the employee failed to produce sufficient evidence that he was “disabled” within the meaning of the Rehabilitation Act, the grant of summary judgment against the disability discrimination claim was affirmed.

Failure to accommodate. For similar reasons, the court also affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment against the employee’s claim for failure to accommodate.

Hostile work environment. Turning to the employee’s hostile work environment claim, he argued that the following constituted severe or pervasive conduct: (1) his supervisor ripping up a request for vacation leave; (2) experiencing harassment about providing a doctor’s note anytime he took a sick day; (3) his supervisor scheduling him for nights and weekends; (4) his supervisor calling him lazy, telling him he was moving too slow, and telling him to get a job at Walmart; and (5) his supervisor telling him and other staff to put tissue in their ears during meetings because they were not listening.

“We hold that this conduct—either individually or collectively—fails to satisfy the demanding standard that our case law has established for showing severe or pervasive conduct,” said the court, noting that the conduct occurred over a period of 20 months, and although the supervisor’s comments may have been insensitive and offensive, they did not rise to the level of hostile or severely abusive. Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary judgment was affirmed.

The case is No. 24-2731.

Judge: Smith, L.

Attorneys: Bonnie M. Boryca (Erickson & Sederstrom) for Quindon M. Yelder. Amanda Phillips Brown, U.S. Attorney's Office, for Pete Hegseth.

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