Imagine a control room that never stops—dispatchers routing gas emergency crews from kitchen tables and spare bedrooms while the city hums outside. Then picture those same workers being ordered back to the office, despite doing the same job with the same tools and delivering the same results.
That scenario played out in a Brooklyn courtroom, where a jury recently handed down a $3.1 million verdict against National Grid. The utility had refused to let two dispatchers with medical conditions continue working from home after the pandemic. During the crisis, these employees had handled emergency routing remotely using company systems and met all performance benchmarks. When offices reopened, they requested to keep teleworking as a disability accommodation. National Grid said no.
Jurors focus on outcomes, not corporate talking points. If emergency operations functioned effectively from home—with the same personnel, laptops, and workflows—then a later demand for physical presence looks like preference, not necessity. The message for executives is clear: when a case built on hard performance data reaches a jury, remote-work flexibility wins.
This isn't an isolated ruling. In July 2024, a Charlotte panel awarded $22.1 million to a former Wells Fargo managing director after finding the bank mishandled her work-from-home accommodation during a return-to-office push. Federal enforcement has followed a similar path. In January 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a consent decree against a facility-management company that refused part-time telework for a high-risk employee.
These cases don't turn on novel legal theories. They hinge on records showing the work got done and that employers lacked evidence to back up claims of hardship from remote arrangements. For corporate leaders, that creates an operational test: if teams prove they can succeed from home, management must provide task-specific reasons for changing course—backed by quality metrics, response times, safety data, and customer outcomes. If collaboration is the rationale, they must identify which tasks require co-location and what alternatives were tried. Juries reward specifics over generalities and evidence over rhetoric.
The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't guarantee a universal right to work from home. It requires an individualized assessment based on essential functions and undue hardship. But even within that traditional framework, the center of gravity has shifted because the facts on the ground have changed. The EEOC's long-standing telework guidance says working at home can be a reasonable accommodation when duties can be performed without significant difficulty or expense. The agency's COVID-era technical assistance, last updated May 15, 2023, notes that ending a public health emergency doesn't permit automatic termination of pandemic accommodations, and that prior remote performance is relevant when evaluating renewed requests.
Appellate decisions reflect this evidentiary shift. In August 2024, the D.C. Circuit held that whether an agency's take-it-or-leave-it telework offer constituted a reasonable accommodation was a jury question based on disputed facts. In November 2022, the Eighth Circuit emphasized that an employer's own hybrid practices and an employee's performance record can make telework feasibility a factual issue. However, courts have also set limits. In February 2024, the Fourth Circuit affirmed that an environmental health and safety manager's essential duties required on-site presence, clarifying that remote work is unreasonable when core functions demand physical attendance. And in 2015, the Sixth Circuit's en banc Ford Motor decision held that telecommuting wasn't reasonable for a highly interactive role tied to real-time collaboration.
Read together, these rulings don't create a universal telework right. They impose a practical burden of proof. Employers win when their duty-by-duty evidence shows why presence is essential and how alternatives fail. Employees win when the record shows remote success, documented metrics, and an interactive process that the employer actually conducted rather than ignored.
The lesson is tactical. Update job descriptions to make essential functions explicit and tied to location—if they truly require in-person presence. Avoid false statements about the need for presence if it's not actually required, because the truth will surface in court. Preserve objective performance data for remote, hybrid, and on-site periods. Train managers to run the interactive process consistent with EEOC enforcement guidance and technical assistance. Propose concrete alternatives when full-time telework isn't reasonable, and document each step. If a dispute ripens into litigation, that record will read as credibility, not conjecture.
A jury just applied the modern ADA test with clarity. While a Brooklyn verdict doesn't bind other courts technically, it sets a precedent that leaders will feel. The combination of punitive damages, a trial record focused on real performance, and public documentation will influence how counsel advises executives about return-to-office rules. As similar cases continue to emerge—like the ongoing debate over whether school employees can sue under Title IX—the evidentiary standard for workplace accommodations is tightening. When cases get to a jury, flexibility backed by data holds up in court.
