Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—DISABILITY—N.D. Ala.: SSA employee with traumatic brain injury was not qualified individual under Rehab Act, (Nov 20, 2025)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

The employee’s request for simplified work would have eliminated an essential function of her job whether performed remotely or in person.

A Social Security Administration claims examiner who sued the agency under the Rehab Act after she suffered a mild traumatic brain injury failed to show she was a qualified individual under the Act, a federal court in Alabama ruled, finding the undisputed evidence showed she could not perform complex and detailed casework even with accommodations. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment against her failure-to-accommodate claim (Porter v. Bisignano, No. 2:23-cv-555-ACA (N.D. Ala. Nov. 17, 2025)).

Traumatic brain injury. In June 2018, the employee was in a car accident that caused a mild traumatic brain injury. She was hospitalized for several days and never returned to work after she was released from the hospital. Her physician determined that her mild traumatic brain injury was causing “migraines, poor balance, mental confusion and paranoia, short term memory loss,” and an inability to drive long distances.

Accommodation request. In October, the employee requested an accommodation allowing her to telework and not have to work on complex cases. Her supervisor recommended that the agency deny her request as her position required face-to-face contact and that the limitations outlined by her physician did not support working at home. As for exempting her from work on complex cases, he stated the agency was “unable to remove the essential functions of the position.” The supervisor offered to reassign her to another position, which she rejected. The employee attested that she rejected reassignment because she could not drive and doubted her ability to learn a new role with the brain injury.

The agency denied the employee’s accommodation request in January 2019. The letter explained that complex or detailed workloads are an essential function of the claims examiner position, and the agency was not required to eliminate an essential function as a reasonable accommodation.

Disability retirement. While the employee was waiting to hear about her accommodation request, she filed for disability retirement. Her physician stated that in his professional opinion, the employee was not able to sustain any type of gainful employment. He explained that she continued to suffer symptoms from the traumatic brain injury, and an expected date of full or partial recovery was unknown. In September 2019, her disability retirement application was granted, and she began receiving disability retirement income.

After her request for accommodation was denied, the employee brought suit against the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration for violation of the Rehab Act.

The agency did not dispute that the employee had a disability. It contended, however, that she was neither “otherwise qualified” for the claims examiner position nor subject to unlawful discrimination because her requested accommodations would not have allowed her to perform the essential functions of the position.

Qualified individual. The agency contended that the employee was not a qualified individual because the claims examiner role requires processing complex or detailed workloads, which she could not do. The employee responded that a genuine issue of material facts existed as to whether an essential function of the job requires complex or detailed casework and whether she could perform that work. However, the court held that the employee did not make a showing that could allow a reasonable jury to find on her behalf in either regard.

The parties largely agreed on the fundamental duties of a claims examiner. They included “reviewing, investigating, and making recommendations and determinations” in cases of claimants who are receiving disability benefits and have returned to work. The position requires analysis of a claimant’s information to determine if the claimant continues to qualify to receive disability benefits. This determination includes balancing several factors, such as income, medical condition, eligibility for trial work, potential fraud, and employer-provided subsidies. The agency maintained that completing these tasks requires handling a complex and detailed workload.

Complex work. The employee argued that she provided evidence that claims examiners receive a mix of “hard and easy cases” and that she could be assigned a noncomplex workload consisting non-responder work scanning documents and exporting documents into MS word. But she admitted that scanning documents was not a large part of her role, and she may not be able to export documents to Microsoft Word because of ongoing eye treatment from her car accident. Although she provided evidence that “non responder” work may not be complex and is likely an essential function of the job, this did not negate that other essential functions of the job are complex, and employers are not required to eliminate essential functions of an employee’s job.

Because there was no dispute of material fact that a claims examiner’s essential functions include complex and detailed work, the employee was required to raise a genuine dispute of fact as to whether she could perform those functions with (or without) an accommodation. The agency argued that the employee could not raise a fact dispute because her brain injury prevented her from working on complex or detailed work and her requested accommodations would not have allowed her to do that work. The court agreed. The undisputed evidence shows that the employee could not perform complex and detailed casework even with accommodations.

Beginning in October 2018 and continuing until the employee received disability retirement, her physician consistently maintained that she “needs a job that requires her to only do simple 1, 2, 3-step instructions/commands” because she “is not able to do any complex or detailed work.” No other expert or physician contradicted this determination. It was undisputed that the essential functions of a claims examiner can be performed remotely and have been performed remotely by other employees, the court noted. But the employee’s request for simplified work would have eliminated an essential function of her job whether performed remotely or in person.

The employee contended that she sought only to complete a simplified workload for three months before integrating back into a regular caseload. The court made no determination as to whether requiring the agency to adjust her role for three months would be a reasonable accommodation, and instead highlighted the undisputed evidence that the physician continued to opine that she could not do complex or detailed work in August 2019—10 months after he initially recommended a simplified workload.

The court thus concluded that the employee did not create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether she was qualified for the claims examiner position because her traumatic brain injury prevented her from performing the essential functions of the job, even with an accommodation. Accordingly, she was unable to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under the Rehab Act and the agency was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Reasonable accommodation. The agency was also entitled to summary judgment, the court held, because the employee failed to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether she was subjected to unlawful discrimination as the result of her disability when the agency denied her accommodation request. As explained above, the accommodations that the employee sought would not allow her to perform the essential functions her job, and therefore, the agency did not unlawfully discriminate in refusing to provide them.

The case is No. 2:23-cv-555-ACA.

Judge: Axon, A.

Attorneys: Lee David Winston (Winston Cooks) for Tomeyka D. Porter. Chad Cowan, U.S. Department of Justice, for Frank Bisignano.

Cases: DisabilityDiscrimination Discrimination PublicEmployees AlabamaNews