JERRY L. PIGSLEY | Woods Aitken LLP
A federal court in Pennsylvania on January 23, 2024, gave INEDA members guidance in a case concerning claims brought by an employee who worked remotely for almost two years against her employer who determined she could not perform all of the essential functions of her job from home. She contended that her employer’s refusal to grant her request for a permanent work from home accommodation was discriminatory under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Galette v. Avenue 365 Lending Services LLC, U.S. Dist. Ct. E.D.Pa. Jan. 23, 2024).
When she began working for the employer, she worked full-time in person at its sole Pennsylvania office. Her primary functions included printing, scanning, and disbursing checks, releasing wires, facilitating the timely funding of loans, handling files disbursed by third-party partners, handling mail, answering emails, handling phone calls, overnighting checks, booking or posting wires and deposits, or performing wire confirmations.
The refinance and purchase transactions related to home ownership that the employer’s Funding Specialists handle require dealing with very high sums of money in the form of property tax checks, homeowner’s insurance, mortgage payoffs, liens, and creditors checks, all of which contained sensitive, nonpublic information. Due to the large volume of money flowing through accounts on a daily basis, her employer is a prime target for wire and check fraud.
In March 2020, all of the employees began working remotely due to COVID-19 pandemic governmental orders. In July 2020, the Company required all Funding Specialists to return to work in the office, unless the employee had obtained a medical accommodation or moved far away from the Company’s Pennsylvania office. She was permitted to continue to work remotely because she obtained a medical accommodation for her COPD.
In November 2020, she was cleared to return to work after being granted a short-term disability leave for a kidney condition. Because of her COPD, she was permitted to continue to work remotely.
In July 2021, the Company required Funding Specialists to return to the office full time to coordinate the high volume of work which made remote work inefficient. She was informed she needed to return to the office or provide updated medical certification to support her continued need to work remotely. She submitted the request for her to work from home for medical reasons and due to the extraordinary high volume of business causing the Company not to be able to hire enough Funding Specialists to keep up with consumer demand, she was allowed to continue to work remotely through the end of the year.
In late 2021 and into 2022, the financial market slowed drastically causing the Company not to hire any new employees, implementing a Company-wide hiring freeze, and several rounds of reductions in force.
In January 2022, she submitted a request for a permanent work from home accommodation. The Company denied the requested accommodation. It offered several options for in-office accommodations, including a handicapped parking spot near the office so that she would not have to walk far, a private office to provide space for her oxygen tanks and to allow her to maintain distance from coworkers due to concerns about vulnerability to COVID-19 transmission. She was terminated after she elected not to return to the office by April 1, 2022, or to apply for another remote position within the Company.
The Court in granting the Company’s motion for summary judgment concluded she failed to establish any claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act because she was unable to demonstrate that a reasonable accommodation would have allowed her to perform the essential functions of her job. The Court further stated: “ADA does not require employers to accommodate a disabled employee by permanently reassigning essential functions to in-office employees, forcing those employees to take on additional tasks.”
In determining “essential functions” of the job, the ADA provides that “consideration shall be given to the employer’s judgment as to what functions of a job are essential, and if an employer has prepared a written description before advertising or interviewing applicants for the job, this description shall be considered evidence of the essential functions of the job.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8). The burden is on the plaintiff that he/she is an “otherwise qualified” individual, and he/she must “demonstrate that a specific, reasonable accommodation would have allowed her to perform the essential functions of her job.” Taylor v. Phoenixville Sch. Dist., 184 F.3d 296, 320 (3d Cir. 1999). So, while this federal court decision in Pennsylvania is not binding on Nebraska and Iowa employers, such as INEDA members, it does provide helpful guidance on the issues an employer may face in denying an employee a request for a permanent, lifelong accommodation to work
at home.