Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—M.D. Tenn.: Hospital employee’s failure-to-accommodate, disability discrimination suit survives summary judgment, (Aug 26, 2026)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

The court is required to assess whether the employee would be otherwise qualified to perform her essential job functions at the time of her proposed return to work.

A hospital employee’s failure-to-accommodate and disability discrimination suit survived summary judgment. A federal district court in Tennessee held that genuine disputes of material fact remained about whether the employee could perform the essential functions of her position at the time of her proposed return. The court also found that the hospital’s failure to engage in the interactive process further precluded summary judgment on whether a reasonable accommodation was available. Finally, the court concluded that genuine disputes of material fact remained about whether the hospital’s proffered neutral reason actually motivated its decision to terminate her (McClain v. Saint Thomas West Hospital Midtown, No. 3:25-cv-00451 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 25, 2026)).

Senior Abstractor. For years, the employee worked for a hospital as a Senior Abstractor tracking cancer patient data.

Cancer and medical leave. When breast cancer required her to take several months of medical leave, the employee returned from treatment and immediately helped her team catch up on outstanding work. Months later, she developed endometrial cancer and again needed medical leave.

Discharge. By April 2024, she had been out for several months. When the hospital asked the employee about her return, she said that she had major cancer surgery scheduled for June 25 and planned to return just six weeks after the surgery. About 25 hours later, the hospital notified the employee by text message that it was terminating her.

Lawsuit. The employee sued the hospital, asserting two claims under the ADA: failure to accommodate and disability discrimination based on her termination. The hospital moved for summary judgment on both claims.

Failure to accommodate. The hospital argued that the employee was not a qualified individual because she could not perform the job when the hospital terminated her. However, binding Sixth Circuit precedent foreclosed that argument. The court is required to assess whether the employee would be otherwise qualified to perform her essential job functions not at the time she was terminated, but at the time of her proposed return to work six weeks after her June 25 surgery. As the Sixth Circuit explained, “[e]mployees requesting medical leave often cannot perform their jobs when they request leave,” so assessing an employee’s qualification at the time of termination would allow an employer to terminate any employee who could not work when requesting leave.

The court found that genuine disputes of material fact remained concerning whether the employee was qualified when she proposed to return to work. The employee based her estimate that she could return six weeks after her June 25 surgery on her recovery from her previous breast cancer surgery. Construing those facts in the light most favorable to the employee, a jury could conclude that she could perform her essential job functions on her proposed return date because she had done so after medical leave in the past and testified that she felt able to do so again.

The hospital argued that the employee’s receipt of long-term disability benefits between April 2024 and December 2024 proved that she was not a qualified individual because her doctors confirmed, in her disability claims documents, that she was totally disabled. The claims documents, however, contained conflicting evidence about the employee’s ability to perform her job functions at the time of her proposed return. The statements in the claims documents concerning her ability to work with restrictions conflicted with the statements that she was “totally disabled.” They do not establish that the employee was unable to work at the time of her proposed return, said the court. Nor did they establish that she could work with restrictions. The jury must decide, the court concluded. In sum, said the court, genuine disputes of material fact remain about whether the employee could perform the essential functions of her position at the time of her proposed return. The hospital was therefore not entitled to summary judgment on the ground that the employee was not a qualified individual.

Indefinite? The hospital argued that the employee’s requested accommodation was not reasonable because it was indefinite, but factual disputes foreclosed that characterization. The employee identified a specific surgery date and a specific recovery period: she told the employer’s Lead Accommodations Specialist that her surgery was scheduled for June 25, 2024, and that she “would be returning after the recovery period of six weeks.” A jury could find that the employee requested a defined period of additional leave rather than an indefinite amount. The employee’s failure to provide a date certain for her return did not undermine that conclusion. The Sixth Circuit has held that, where an employer leads an employee to believe that she does not have to provide a date certain for the requested leave, she need not provide an exact return date. That was the situation here, said the court. A jury could find that the hospital’s failure to communicate the necessity of a date certain during the interactive process led the employee to believe that she did not need to provide one.

Interactive process. The hospital’s failure to engage in the interactive process further precluded summary judgment on whether a reasonable accommodation was available. The ADA requires an employer to engage in an interactive process to identify the employee’s limitations and potential reasonable accommodations. The dialogue between the hospital and the employee was short-lived. The Lead Accommodations Specialist asked the employee when she expected to return, and the employee gave her an estimate. The Specialist did not ask for her specific return date, nor did she ask for additional information that might allow the employee to remain employed. And the hospital conducted no further investigation into the employee’s request before deciding to terminate her. The hospital notified the employee of its termination decision about twenty-five hours after the employee provided her return estimate. Viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the employee, a jury could find that the hospital failed to engage in the mandatory interactive process and that further dialogue could have produced the specific return date that the hospital said it needed. The hospital cannot benefit at summary judgment from its own failure to engage in a process designed to determine whether a reasonable accommodation was available, the court concluded.

Disability discrimination. The hospital argued that the employee’s disability discrimination claim failed because she was not qualified and could not establish that her disability was a but-for cause of her termination. As the court previously explained, genuine disputes of material fact remained about whether the employee could perform the essential functions of her position at the time of her proposed return.

The hospital identified a “neutral reason” for terminating the employee. It contended that the employee could not return to work and that it needed another Senior Abstractor to address its reporting backlog and comply with various reporting concerns. The employee contended that the hospital’s proffered neutral reason for her termination was pretextual. The hospital attributed the employee’s termination to its staffing and reporting problems, but those problems predated her request for additional leave. The abstracting team ordinarily had nine full-time employees but had only six, including the employee, by April 2024. Several employees had left the team, and the hospital had not filled all of their positions. The employee’s manager acknowledged that leaving positions unfilled could create “a hardship or backlog.” Even though the employee did not cause those staffing problems, the hospital terminated her within twenty-five hours of her request for additional leave for cancer surgery. The employee’s termination then left a hole in the team for several months. The hospital redistributed the employee’s responsibilities to the remaining Senior Abstractors. The hospital hired a trainee abstractor at the end of August 2024, and did not hire another Senior Abstractor until October 14, 2024. By the time the hospital filled the gap left by the employee’s termination with another Senior Abstractor, the employee’s requested period of leave had already ended.

Pretext. On these facts, said the court, where the employee did not cause the staffing problem and the hospital did not hire another Senior Abstractor until after her requested leave would have ended, a jury could find that the hospital’s stated neutral reason was pretextual and used to hide disability discrimination. Genuine disputes of material fact thus remained about whether the hospital’s proffered neutral reason actually motivated its decision to terminate the employee. For those same reasons, genuine disputes also remained on the ultimate causation question. A jury could find that the hospital terminated the employee because of her disability, the court concluded.

The case is No. 3:25-cv-00451.

Judge: Crenshaw, W.

Attorneys: Richard Lee Colbert (Thompson Burton) for Angela McClain. C. Eric Stevens (Littler Mendelson) for Saint Thomas West Hospital d/b/a Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown.

Companies: Saint Thomas West Hospital; Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown

Cases: DisabilityDiscrimination Discrimination EmployeeLeave Discharge TennesseeNews