Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—E.D. Pa.: ADA claims against manufacturing employer that withdrew job won’t proceed to trial, (Aug 7, 2026)

By Nadine E. Roddy, J.D.

No rational jury could find the worker, who suffered from chronic back pain, could perform the essential job function of lifting, with or without reasonable accommodation.

A temporary worker, whose potential employer withdrew its offer of full-time employment in a manufacturing plant after learning of the worker’s medical lifting restrictions, failed to raise material fact issues on her claims of disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation under the ADA, a federal district court in Pennsylvania has ruled, granting summary judgment against her claims (Orlena v. Kenvue Brands LLC, No. 2:24-cv-06575-WB (E.D. Pa. Aug. 3, 2026)).

Lifting requirements. The worker, whose conditional offer of full-time employment was withdrawn, brought suit against her potential employer, a producer of over-the-counter health care products, asserting claims of disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation under the ADA and parallel Pennsylvania law. The worker suffered from chronic back pain as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. Even with prescribed opiates and regular epidurals, she often experienced “throbbing, burning, and sharp pain” during her waking hours.

While in treatment, she obtained a job with a temporary staffing agency, which placed her at a plant operated by the employer to work as a manufacturing associate (MA). In this position, she rotated through various “work areas,” where the job required carrying batches of containers, some weighing up to 40 pounds, many times during each shift. The MA job description stated that employees must be able to perform “continuous lifting and/or moving from 5 to 25 lbs. weight material, and frequent lifting or moving average (25-50 lbs) weight material.”

Chronic back pain. A few months into her temporary assignment, the worker participated in the employer’s medical assessment program, which involved paperwork and a physical examination. The worker’s responses on the paperwork, which included an admission that she experienced pain “at a level of seven out of ten” while at work, prompted concerns about whether she could safely perform the physical requirements of the MA job.

The employer instructed the worker to obtain a physical assessment clearing her for work, but despite repeated reminders over the next five months, she failed to do so. Nevertheless, because of the high quality of her work, the employer offered her a full-time MA position, contingent upon completion of the health evaluation.

She accepted the job, but in a subsequent meeting with the employer’s occupational health doctor, she was informed she could not continue to work absent medical clearance from her treating doctor. The two discussed possible accommodations and the doctor provided the worker with an accommodation request form, which she never completed.

Employment offer withdrawn. Ultimately, after the worker provided the employer with three disability assessments, the employer concluded that it could not reasonably accommodate her disability in the MA position and withdrew its offer of employment. The employer had not included the worker in its accommodation discussions. In the ensuing lawsuit, the employer moved for summary judgment.

Disability discrimination, failure to accommodate. The worker claimed that the employer discriminated against her on the basis of her disability when it rescinded her full-time offer after concluding (wrongly, she believed) that her disability precluded her from performing the essential functions of the MA position. She further maintained that the employer arrived at that determination unilaterally, without engaging in any kind of “interactive process” to work out a possible accommodation. As an initial matter, the court noted that such a failure is “unimportant” if a worker is not a “qualified individual” under the ADA.

The worker argued that she could perform the essential functions of the MA job without accommodation, pointing out that she had been doing so for several months. Her evidence of prior performance, however, was immaterial in light of the restrictions imposed by her own medical providers. Their conclusion was unanimous that she could not safely lift more than 20 pounds. Until receiving these assessments, the employer had been unaware of the extent of her physical restrictions—a fact for which she was largely responsible.

The court acknowledged that the worker could in retrospect disagree with her physicians’ assessments, but nothing in the record demonstrated such disagreement or suggested the evaluations were medically unsound. Thus, the worker’s argument seemed to be that she was entitled by the ADA to remain in the MA role against medical advice. The ADA, however, simply does not require an employer to permit an employee to perform a job function that the employee’s physician has forbidden, for obvious reasons of safety.

The worker then argued that the employer could have accommodated her disability by removing the requirement that she be able to lift objects between 20-50 pounds. Employers are not required, however, to accommodate an employee by removing an essential job function or restructuring a job so as to avoid it. Thus, the worker did not meet her prima facie burden because her proposed accommodations were “unreasonable as a matter of law.”

Retaliation. The worker also asserted that the employer had withdrawn its employment offer in retaliation for her protected activity of having discussed potential accommodations with the employer’s occupational health doctor. In her opposition brief, however, she declared that “Plaintiff and Defendant are in total agreement on at least one thing—the challenged adverse decision was made against Plaintiff because of her back disability.” (Emphasis original.) The court believed that this statement satisfied the criteria for binding judicial admissions on the material fact of causation. In light of this unequivocal statement, there could be no genuine dispute about whether retaliatory animus connected to her request for accommodations was a but-for cause of the employment decision—it was not.

For these reasons, the court granted the employer’s motion for summary judgment on all claims.

The case is No. 2:24-cv-06575-WB.

Judge: Beetlestone, W.

Attorneys: Adam C. Lease (Karpf, Karpf & Cerutti) for Takiyah Orlena. Anthony B. Haller (Blank Rome) for Kenvue Brands LLC.

Companies: Kenvue Brands LLC

Cases: DisabilityDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation PennsylvaniaNews