Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—8th Cir.: University IT employee with ADHD is unable to revive bias and retaliation claims, (Aug 4, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The court noted that the employee had alleged he made numerous requests for accommodations and all without retaliation; then, only nine days after he admitted to misusing university computer equipment, he was fired.

An employee of a university IT department who appealed summary judgment against his claims for disability discrimination and retaliation was unable to persuade the Eighth Circuit to revive his lawsuit. He had alleged that his discharge was related to his ADHD and was also retaliatory, but he failed to meet the threshold requirement of showing that he suffers from an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. As for retaliation, he made multiple requests for accommodation, without evidence of retaliation, and his termination was days after he admitted to a policy violation. Finally, regarding the district court’s refusal to allow the employee to amend his complaint to include a Title II claim under the ADA, “[l]ike a majority of the circuits,” the appeals court stated, it concluded that claims for employment-based discrimination do not arise under Title II (Trambly v. Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, No. 24-1884 (8th Cir. Aug. 1, 2025)).

Performance issues after promotion. For the first four years of his employment with the Information Technology department at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, the employee did not appear to have notable performance issues—he received outstanding annual performance evaluations. However, at some point in July 2017, after he was promoted, that began to change. He received a negative performance evaluation for the period between April 2017 and March 2018, with his supervisor noting that he had problems with communication, including interjecting himself into other employees’ work, becoming visibly overwhelmed and frustrated, interrupting clients, and spending excessive time on service calls. The employee agreed with “most” of the comments.

Pulled a hard drive, was fired. In November 2018 he accused a coworker of interfering with his email account. Although the employer started an investigation, the employee “decided to take matters into his own hands” according to the court and pulled a hard drive from a university computer to gather evidence. This unauthorized removal violated a university policy, and the employee was fired.

He sued, alleging that the university discriminated against him, in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, the ADA, and state law, based on his disability, through a hostile work environment, disparate treatment, and failure to provide reasonable accommodation. According to the employee, he made the university aware that he had a documented “mental impairment,” which he later identified as ADHD, and he alleged that his supervisor threatened that she would fire him “if he continued to bring up his disabilities.” He alleged that his termination in 2019 was “in retaliation for requesting accommodations.”

The court below granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment and the employee appealed. The appeals court affirmed.

Disability evidence. The employee failed to meet the threshold requirement of showing that he suffers from an impairment that substantially limited one or more major life activities. He maintained that he has ADHD, but in support of his claim he presented only a report from an asthma specialist he saw when he was 13 years old who noted in his past medical history that the employee had “carried a diagnosis of” ADHD. The employee, who is over 40 years old, provided no current evidence regarding his condition. His unsupported allegations, the court explained, were insufficient to support a finding in his favor on whether he has a condition that limits his life activities. While the employee pointed to three more alleged disabilities in response to the employer’s motion for summary judgment, he failed to plead those, and they were not considered.

Retaliation. The employee also argued that the lower court erred by dismissing his retaliation claims, arguing that he was subjected to threats of termination by two separate supervisors in response to his requests for accommodation, as well as negative comments and criticisms, a suboptimal evaluation, and termination. His principal argument, the court noted, was that the lower court failed to consider that in 2017 one of his supervisors directed him to stop requesting accommodations and threatened him with termination after he sought an accommodation. However, he did not allege in his complaint or argue below that the supervisor retaliated against him and the appeals court thus declined to consider it for the first time on appeal.

As for another alleged termination threat, made in 2016 by an immediate supervisor who said that “if he kept bringing up his disabilities, she would fire him,” the record failed to support this claim. The employee pointed to interrogatory answers by the supervisor sharing her view that high-level managers “would terminate anyone who would go to HR about them,” and that she had once told him to stop discussing his alleged disabilities after he raised the matter “over and over” and “around 8-10 times.” This evidence, the court explained, did not show that she threatened termination.

Repeated explanations were “irritating.” The employee also argued that he experienced “negative comments and criticisms” from both of those supervisors regarding his ADHD, which he contended were directly responsive to his request for accommodations. For example, his supervisor told him that she knew “exactly what ADHD” was and that another coworker has ADD and to “STOP BRINGING IT UP, it is irritating.” He contended that he spoke with his supervisors multiple times and that in 2018 he also met with university administrators to begin a formal process of requesting accommodations. However, the court concluded that this evidence did not support a finding of discrimination, reflecting only that “an employee requesting an accommodation must act reasonably in communicating with supervisors.”

No evidence that performance issues were “concocted.” As for the suboptimal performance review, the court noted that this occurred after he was promoted, the employee had acknowledged that the review accurately reported real problems with his performance, and there was not sufficient evidence to show the evaluation was causally linked to his protected conduct. The evidence did not support the conclusion that the employer “concocted a finding of deficient performance” so that it could retaliate against him. The court noted that the employee had alleged he made numerous requests for accommodations and all without retaliation. Then, only nine days after he admitted to misusing university computer equipment, he was fired. This policy violation, the court explained, constituted a legitimate reason or his termination and the employee did not suggest that the employer had disciplined anyone less harshly for similar conduct.

Title II of the ADA. Finally, the court considered the employee’s argument that the lower court should not have denied his request to amend his complaint to bring an ADA claim under Title II. “Like a majority of the circuits,” the appeals court stated, it concluded that claims for employment-based discrimination do not arise under Title II of the ADA, which, “[b]y its plain text... applies to generally available services, programs, and activities offered by state and local governments, and not to employment.”

The case is No. 24-1884.

Judge: Colloton, S.

Attorneys: Joshua D. Barber (Barber & Barber) for James F. Trambly. Lily Amare (Cline Williams Wright Johnson & Oldfather) for Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.

Companies: Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

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