Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WORTH NOTING—Recent developments involving disability discrimination, (May 30, 2025)

By WK Editorial Staff

A roundup of recent decisions involving disability discrimination claims of interest to the labor and employment law community.

S.D. Miss.: Police officer with PTSD, anxiety failed to provide medical documentation. Following a fatal shooting incident, a police sergeant was placed on paid administrative leave and underwent multiple psychological evaluations, which consistently deemed him unfit for duty due to PTSD and anxiety. Despite being reinstated conditionally, he failed to provide the required medical documentation verifying his ability to perform essential job functions, leading to his termination for job abandonment. The sergeant sued the city, alleging disability discrimination under the ADA and Section 1983. The city moved for summary judgment, arguing there was no direct evidence of disability discrimination, the sergeant was not a qualified individual under the ADA, and the fitness-for-duty evaluations were lawful and necessary. The court found no direct evidence of discrimination and determined the sergeant was not a qualified individual as he could not perform his job’s essential functions “with or without a reasonable accommodation.” The court also upheld the employer's requirement for fitness evaluations as job-related and consistent with business necessity. Furthermore, the court found no evidence of disparate treatment or violation of the Equal Protection Clause, as the protocols applied uniformly to all officers involved in similar incidents (Tiller v. City of Jackson , No. 3:24-CV-94-KHJ-MTP (S.D. Miss. May 16, 2025)).

S.D. Tex.: Ill employee failed to respond to employer’s emails regarding absence from work. A service coordinator for a mental health center who has diabetes and chronic kidney disease, took leave to travel to Nigeria and was hospitalized there. While he notified his supervisor of his illness, he did not respond to follow-up emails from work, and did not contact his employer until four days after he returned from Nigeria. While he provided a doctor's note that covered future absences, he failed to submit documentation for the period he was absent without notice, and was subsequently terminated for job abandonment and violation of agency policy. He sued his employer, alleging discriminatory termination under the ADA, and FMLA interference. The mental health center moved for summary judgment, arguing that the termination was due to the employee’s violation of company policy regarding unnotified absences, not due to discrimination based on disability or interference with FMLA rights. The court found that the employee did not establish a prima facie case for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA) or interference under the FMLA. The court concluded that the employee failed to provide proper notice of his intent to take FMLA leave and did not demonstrate that the mental health center’s stated reason for termination was pretextual. The motion was granted (Thompson v. The Harris Center for Mental Health , No. H-23-0297 (S.D. Tex. May 16, 2025)).

W.D. Va.: Network engineer alleged demotion after revealing depression diagnosis. A network engineer diagnosed with major depression alleged that adverse employment actions followed his disclosure of his condition to his employer, an electric cooperative and its subsidiary, in March 2018. After receiving a received a mixed performance review in July 2020, and a formal reprimand in August 2020, the engineer took medical leave. Upon requesting accommodations in August 2020, he was offered a new position that he perceived as a demotion, prompting him to resign and sue the cooperative and subsidiary, alleging retaliation, interference, and failure to accommodate under the ADA. The cooperative sought summary judgment on all claims. The court granted summary judgment on the interference and failure to accommodate claims—the court found insufficient evidence of interference, and found that a jury “would not find that [the employee] was a qualified individual under the ADA because he lacks the requisite skills of a [n]etwork [e]ngineer and remains medically unavailable to return to work….” However, the court denied summary judgment on the retaliation claim, noting that a reasonable jury could infer a causal link between the accommodation request and the perceived demotion (Williams v. B-A-R-C Electric Cooperative , No. 5:22-cv-00061 (W.D. Va. May 23, 2025)).

Cases: DisabilityDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge Retaliation EmployeeLeave PublicEmployees Procedure