Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—8th Cir.: Judgment for USDA affirmed in disability bias suit brought by abused spouse, (Jun 25, 2026)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

She admitted sometimes she missed work because of her children’s needs, not her disability; her medical absences were only recorded as infractions when she failed to request time in advance or would no-show without later providing documentation.

A USDA employee who suffered from mental health issues following an abusive marriage, given a notice of proposed removal two months after she stopped showing up for work, and ultimately fired, was unable to revive her claims of disability and sex discrimination on appeal to the Eighth Circuit. She could not satisfy the standard for direct evidence with comments by her supervisor, nor did she have sufficient indirect evidence of discrimination. She was unable to show that the employer’s reason for firing her—repeated and unexcused absences—was pretextual. She also was unable to revive her sex discrimination, disability-based retaliation, or non-accommodation claims, and the lower court’s decision was affirmed (Dobbins v. Rollins, No. 25-1465 (8th Cir. June 24, 2026)).

At some point after the employee began working for the USDA in 2006, her supervisor at the time began to allow her flexible leave, flexible start times, and ad hoc telework because he learned that she had an abusive spouse. The employee developed depression, anxiety, and PTSD sometime around 2019. That same year, her sympathetic supervisor retired, however, and two years later she came under a new supervisor who she felt was unsympathetic and hostile towards her. He noticed she was often late or absent without approval and, according to the employee, he limited her leave, revoked her flexible start time, belittled and berated her, and talked about her mental health in front of her coworkers. She also alleged that he tried to stop her from filing an EEOC complaint.

Stopped coming to work. Indeed, the employee did not dispute that she was often late or absent and the record provided evidence of over 30 “absent without leave” infractions in a space of four months, some of which spanned multiple days of work. She was suspended without pay for a week in January 2022 as a result. She stopped coming to work in May, received a notice of proposed removal in July, was placed on paid administrative investigative leave in September, and was fired in January 2023.

She sued the agency for sex and disability discrimination under Title VII and the Rehab Act, as well as for a hostile work environment and failure to accommodate her disability, but the district court granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment. She appealed.

Disability discrimination. On appeal, she argued that her depression, anxiety, and PTSD disabled her and that she had direct evidence of discrimination to prove it, pointing to her testimony that her supervisor had called her “little girl” and had told her to leave her home issues at the door, questioned her medical needs, and berated her for missing work. This evidence, the court explained, did not satisfy the direct evidence standard. The comments did not show a link between discriminatory animus and the decisions he made. There also was not enough evidence that the supervisor’s angry comments and criticism were because of her disability, “rather than a general frustration with her tardiness and absences.”

Likewise, the court did not think she had shown sufficient indirect evidence of discrimination to make out a claim under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Even if she made out a prima facie case, she could not show that the employer’s reason for firing her, her repeated and unexcused absences, was pretextual. She could not show that the employer’s reason for firing her had no basis in fact—she admitted she was often late or absent—and she also did not show that it was more likely that it was motivated by a prohibited reason. She pointed to another employee who was allowed 15 minutes of leave and also allowed to telework when necessary, but they were not similarly situated because there was no evidence that the other employee had a history of unexcused absences.

Moreover, the court was not convinced that firing the employee for attendance reasons was disability-related discrimination; she admitted that she sometimes missed work because of her children’s health and scheduling needs, rather than her disability. And her medical absences were only counted against her as leave infractions when she failed to request time off in advance or when she would not show up and then not follow up with proper medical documentation. She did not allege that her disability prevented her from complying with the employer’s attendance procedures either.

HWE. As for the employee’s hostile work environment claim, it too failed. She did not have any evidence that any harassment based on her disability was sufficiently severe or pervasive. Most of the evidence she identified, the court explained, was not connected to her disability. When she was late, she contended, her supervisor would point it out and charge her leave. He placed her on leave restrictions after she was late on her son’s first day of school. He also insisted she arrive by her 9:00 start time, regardless of home-life issues. “This shows how [her supervisor] reacted when [she] arrived late but not that [she] was subjected to a hostile work environment because of her disability,” the court explained. The remaining evidence—that he requested more medical information and in certain formats, and that he talked about her disability in front of others was “at most ‘rude or unpleasant,’ but that is not enough.”

Other claims. With regard to her argument that the lower court erred in granting summary judgment on her sex-discrimination claims and her disability-based retaliation claim, the appeals court explained that she did not oppose the employer’s summary judgment motion on those claims, so her arguments were forfeited.

It also affirmed judgment on her failure to accommodate claim because it was not exhausted with the EEOC. She contended that her complaint with the EEOC covered it, but the court did not agree that “complaining about disability discrimination generally was enough to exhaust her failure to accommodate claim.” The EEOC investigation “reasonably focused on the two alleged incidents of disparate treatment” and while it referenced a request for accommodation she made with a different supervisor in 2020, it said nothing about her last supervisor’s failure to accommodate her in 2021, which was the subject of her appeal.

The case is No. 25-1465.

Judge: Kobes, J.

Attorneys: Rebecca M. Randles (Randles & Mata) for Sara Dobbins. Vanessa Christina Kamberis, U.S. Attorney's Office, for Brooke L. Rollins.

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