Fired NC worker who wouldn’t return to office loses 4th Circuit case

A federal Appeals Court has ruled against a North Carolina breast cancer patient who lost her job when she refused to return to her workplace after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Appellate judges agreed the woman could not claim retaliation and discrimination based on a disability.

“Wilson Air Center, … a private aviation services provider, tried to get DeAnne Haggins, an employee diagnosed with breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic, to return to the office on a hybrid schedule,” Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote Wednesday for a unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. “Wilson Air’s business had rebounded, and the in-person duties that Haggins previously shifted onto someone else had begun to overwhelm him.”

“Yet while Haggins agreed to the arrangement on paper, she resisted in practice,” Wilkinson added. “And after she repeatedly missed work without notice, Wilson Air discharged her. Haggins claims that doing so amounted to discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

“Given the circumstances, both compassion and real efforts at accommodation were called for,” the 4th Circuit opinion continued. “Far from breaking the law, Wilson Air exceeded the call of duty. It allowed Haggins to work full-time from home when business was down, continuing to pay her full salary. The return of business, however, necessitated at least a part-time return to the office.”

“Across nearly three months, Wilson Air reiterated that it wanted Haggins to come into the office, but only as her schedule permitted; took precautions to limit the spread of disease; and excused many of her failures to communicate,” Wilkinson wrote. “But Haggins showed up to work for just two partial days total in the three-month period, often failing to warn any of her coworkers when she would be working from home — or not working altogether. She therefore does not land within the ADA’s definition of a ‘qualified individual.’”

Haggins worked in accounts payable for Wilson Air for 16 years, coming into the office “on a regular basis,” Wilkinson explained.

“That changed during the COVID-19 pandemic” in 2020, the judge added. “Its onset understandably caused many Wilson Air employees — including Haggins — to adopt hybrid schedules, where they worked in part remotely and in part in the office. The pandemic also caused ‘the number of arriving flights, fuel sales, and revenue [to] hit record lows.’”

Haggins also was diagnosed with a “very aggressive form” of breast cancer and “went fully

remote during the summer due to her compromised immune system and constant need for treatment,” Wilkinson explained.

“The arrangement worked well at first. But by March 2021, Wilson Air’s business had largely returned to normal,” the 4th Circuit opinion continued. The account manager who took over Haggins’ in-person duties asked whether she could return to a hybrid schedule with two days in the office each week for 4-5 hours each day.

Haggins agreed. “But over the next month, Haggins never came into the office,” Wilkinson wrote. In a May 2021 meeting, one Wilson Air supervisor suggested Haggins’ in-person duties “needed attention only once per week,” and Haggins “volunteered to ‘do [them] twice a week’ around her ongoing medical treatment.”

She ended up working only two more partial days in the office. In June 2021, her employers noted problems getting in touch with Haggins about her work. Eventually, she was “discharged for ‘job abandonment’ — that is, repeatedly missing work without warning,” Wilkinson wrote.

Haggins sued Wilson Air almost one year later. “In relevant part, she alleged 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 human resources, all in violation of the ADA,” the 4th Circuit opinion explained.

US District Judge Robert Conrad granted summary judgment to Wilson Air.

Appellate judges agreed that Haggins did not qualify for the ADA’s protection, even though her breast cancer would qualify as an recognized disability under the federal law.

“That an employee has a disability does not automatically mean she is entitled to the ADA’s protections,” Wilkinson explained. “’No matter the type of discrimination alleged,’ the employee must show first that she is a ‘qualified individual.’ Thus, whether characterized as a failure to accommodate or general disability discrimination, an ADA claimant like Haggins must be someone ‘who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.’”

“Haggins does not claim on appeal that she can fulfill the duties of an accounting assistant while fully working from home,” the appellate judge wrote. “She instead chooses a more modest theory: if Wilson Air gave her the reasonable accommodation of a hybrid schedule that it had promised, her argument goes, she would have been able to perform her job’s essential functions — making her a qualified individual under the ADA. But Wilson Air did not renege on the parties’ compromise for a hybrid schedule. Haggins did.”

“Over and over, Wilson Air expressed openness to Haggins working in the office part-time and teleworking for the rest of her hours; each time, Haggins purported to accept yet failed to follow through,” Wilkinson wrote.

“It need not be said that we take seriously Haggins’s battle with breast cancer; cancer can be a formidable foe,” the judge added. “We recognize that many of Haggins’s absences can be attributed to her regrettably long suffering from this disease. But therein lies the problem. Even with the reasonable accommodation of a hybrid schedule, Haggins could not show up to work to perform her position’s essential functions, or at least timely notify Wilson Air whenever she would be out of the office. That means she is not a qualified individual, rendering the ADA’s protections inapplicable.”

“The undisputed facts reveal that Wilson Air frequently went beyond the ADA’s baseline in trying to accommodate Haggins,” Wilkinson wrote. “To hold the employer liable for disability discrimination, after all these commendable efforts at bilateral cooperation, would do a disservice to Wilson Air and the ADA alike.”

Judges Steven Agee and Stephanie Thacker joined Wilkinson’s decision.

“Fired NC worker who wouldn’t return to office loses 4th Circuit case” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.