No Disability Discrimination When Plaintiff Failed to Communicate

Takeaway: The search for a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act entails reciprocal obligations from both the employer and the employee. 

The reasonable accommodation requirement includes a reciprocal obligation between the employer and the employee to engage in a good faith, collaborative process. An employee who does not properly engage in this collaborative process cannot subsequently hold the employer liable for disability discrimination, according to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

How-To Guide: How to Handle ADA Accommodation Requests

The plaintiff regularly worked in person for more than a decade. Near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the plaintiff switched to a hybrid schedule, but then in the summer went fully remote due to a breast cancer diagnosis, which required reassigning her in-person responsibilities to another employee. This worked well at first, especially because the pandemic caused a decline in the employer’s business. But, by March 2021, when the employer’s business began to return to normal levels, the other employee began to feel overwhelmed by having to perform the plaintiff’s in-person duties, and so the employer proposed to the plaintiff to come into the office two days per week to perform some of these duties. 

Despite agreeing to this proposal, the plaintiff did not come into the office for more than a month. In May 2021, the plaintiff met with her supervisors, who reiterated the need for her to come into the office at least on a part-time basis, allowing her the flexibility to schedule her in-person work around her medical appointments. The plaintiff agreed to keep her supervisors apprised of her schedule and come into the office twice a week, but again failed to report in person for almost another month. 

An HR manager notified the plaintiff that she was required to work in person, and notified her of precautions the employer would take to minimize her exposure to illness. After this, the plaintiff worked two partial days in person, but then again went fully remote. 

Policy: In-Office, Remote, and Hybrid Work Arrangements

For the next three weeks, despite the employer’s multiple attempts to reach out to the plaintiff, she responded only sporadically and failed to report to work — either in person or remotely — on two separate occasions without prior notice. Her supervisor then emailed her that she had been discharged for job abandonment. 

The plaintiff filed a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), alleging that her employer failed to make a reasonable accommodation for her, discriminated against her because of her breast cancer, and retaliated against her for complaining to HR. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer, finding that the plaintiff failed to present a “prima-facie” case of discrimination, retaliation, or failure to accommodate, and even if she had, the employer brought “overwhelming evidence” of the legitimate business reasons for the decisions it made.

The 4th Circuit affirmed this judgment, reasoning that the plaintiff failed to meet a predicate condition for ADA discrimination, that she was a “qualified individual.” The 4th Circuit emphasized that, even though the plaintiff’s breast cancer was a disability, in order to maintain a discrimination claim, the plaintiff needed to show that she was a “qualified individual,” in that a reasonable accommodation would enable her to perform the essential functions of the job.

According to the 4th Circuit, implicit in this definition of “qualified individual” is a reciprocal obligation between the employer and the employee to engage in a good-faith, collaborative search for a reasonable accommodation. But the plaintiff in this case failed to meet her end of this reciprocal obligation. 

In reaching this conclusion, the 4th Circuit pointed to two occasions on which the plaintiff agreed to come in person twice a week, but then failed to follow through on this promise. The 4th Circuit also stated that the problem was compounded by the plaintiff’s repeated failure to communicate her absences to her employer. The 4th Circuit noted that, by contrast, the employer had gone “beyond the ADA’s baseline” in trying to accommodate this employee. 

Specifically, the employer reassigned several of her essential functions to another employee and reverted those functions only when its business needs changed. It permitted her to work on a hybrid schedule, allowed her to schedule her in-person days around medical appointments, and took precautions to minimize her exposure to illness in person. Notably, before discharging the plaintiff, the employer made multiple attempts to cooperate with her. 

The 4th Circuit concluded that to hold this employer liable for disability discrimination, after its “commendable efforts at bilateral cooperation,” would be a disservice to the ADA, and affirmed summary judgment in the employer’s favor. 

Hall Haggins v. Wilson Air Center LLC, 4th Cir., No. 24-1010 (Jan. 14, 2026).

Anshul S. Agrawal is an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia.