NEW YORK – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit against FedEx Express for allegedly violating federal law when it failed to accommodate several dispatchers’ requests to continue working from home and demanded the dispatchers’ immediate return to its downtown Manhattan office, effectively forcing at least one into retirement.
“Allowing an employee to work at home can be a reasonable accommodation where the person’s disability prevents them from successfully performing the job on-site and the job, or parts of the job, can be performed at home without causing significant difficulty or expense,” said Kimberly A. Cruz, EEOC Regional Attorney. “Before denying such accommodation requests, companies must sincerely evaluate whether the accommodations can be made, whether they would require significant difficulty or expense, and/or whether alternative accommodations exist.”
30-year Employee Denied Accommodation
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, a successful 30-year career dispatcher for FedEx requested to continue teleworking as an accommodation for her disabilities which, among other limitations, substantially limited the employee’s ability to walk. The employee, and other disabled dispatchers, previously performed dispatcher duties remotely for nearly three years, from approximately April 2020 until February 2023.
FedEx denied continued telework based on an alleged operational need to have all its dispatchers work in the office and failed to engage with its disabled dispatchers to find alternative accommodations, according to the suit.
Violation of ADA
Such alleged conduct violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits an employer from failing to reasonably accommodate an employee’s qualifying disability, absent undue hardship. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (EEOC v. Federal Express Corporation d/b/a FedEx Express, Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-00454) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The EEOC seeks relief designed to remedy and prevent discrimination based on disability.
“The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many things, including that remote work can benefit employers without creating much of a detriment,” said Andres F. Puerta, a trial attorney in the EEOC’s New York District Office There is no reason an employee who is successfully working remotely as an accommodation for a disability should be denied continued accommodation where no undue hardship exists.”
For more information on disability discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
