{"id":247742,"date":"2026-06-18T14:36:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/?p=247742"},"modified":"2026-06-18T14:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:36:39","slug":"court-says-full-time-remote-work-rarely-required-under-ada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/2026\/06\/18\/court-says-full-time-remote-work-rarely-required-under-ada\/","title":{"rendered":"Court says full-time remote work rarely required under ADA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent federal court decision may offer employers additional support when responding to employee requests for permanent remote work as a disability accommodation.<\/p>\n<p>The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an employer did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when it denied an employee\u2019s request for full-time remote work after offering a hybrid arrangement instead.<\/p>\n<p>The case involved an IT systems administrator working for a military contractor who had temporarily worked remotely during the pandemic. After the client required contractors to return to in-person work, the employee requested permanent remote work as an accommodation related to autism, depression, and social anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>The employer allowed remote work two to three days per week but declined a full-time remote arrangement. After about two months of hybrid work, the employee reiterated his need for full-time remote work and was subsequently terminated.<\/p>\n<p>The employee sued, alleging disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation under the ADA. Both a lower court and the 5th Circuit sided with the employer.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Court rationale<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The court emphasized several long-standing ADA principles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In-person work may still be an essential job function. Courts generally give weight to employer judgment when determining what duties are essential.<\/li>\n<li>Temporary remote work does not automatically change job requirements. The court said COVID-era arrangements do not necessarily redefine essential functions.<\/li>\n<li>Employers do not have to provide an employee\u2019s preferred accommodation. The court found that offering hybrid work could satisfy ADA obligations even if the employee requested something different.<\/li>\n<li>Full-time remote work remains difficult to establish as a required accommodation. The court repeated prior guidance that full-time telework is \u201crarely a reasonable accommodation.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><strong>Compliance considerations<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The decision does not mean employers can automatically reject remote work requests or adopt blanket return-to-office rules without considering accommodation obligations.<\/p>\n<p>The court reinforced that accommodation requests still require individualized review and an interactive process.<\/p>\n<p>Employers may want to ensure job descriptions clearly reflect in-person expectations, document business reasons supporting attendance requirements, and consistently evaluate remote work requests based on the specific job duties and circumstances involved, rather than employer preference alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent federal court decision may offer employers additional support when responding to employee requests for permanent remote work as a disability accommodation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5756,"featured_media":246653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27748,32229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-legal-update"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5756"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247743,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247742\/revisions\/247743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/molawyersmedia.com\/missouriinhouse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}