How we successfully aided in a COVID-19 related discrimination claim
The Situation
Our client, Brightmore*, hired an employee, Rebecca*, to work with their clients in 2019. Her job requirements included frequent travel across the U.S. to provide in-person training for Brightmore’s clients. In March of 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, Brightmore decided to temporarily move to a fully remote workforce. However, after the Georgia stay-at-home order was lifted a few weeks later, Brightmore determined it was best for the company’s office building to reopen and for employees to resume work-related travel.
Rebecca informed Brightmore that she would be continuing to work from home and asked to be accommodated. She stated she suffered from a medical disability that caused her to be high-risk and highly susceptible to covid. At the time of her request, many airlines had slowed down operations and Rebecca’s clients were also working remotely. However, after several months passed, travel in the U.S. became more manageable, and Brightmore’s clients began to request the in-person training they had paid for. Brightmore had accommodated Rebecca’s initial request, but with the growing needs of their business, allowing Rebecca to work remotely and not resume travel became an undue hardship. If she would have continued to work from home, Brightmore would have needed to hire a full-time replacement while still employing her for the same job.
Brightmore reached out to Polished Interactions early on for our help and expertise. We immediately sat down with them to understand what their ideal outcome would be. They let us know they would either like Rebecca to resign voluntarily or return to work at full capacity. We advised Brightmore to engage in a reasonable accommodation discussion with Rebecca to find a mutual solution. We made Brightmore aware that it was likely Rebecca would refuse all options thus leading to voluntary resignation. However, we felt confident that our strategy was the best way to achieve one of Brightmore’s objectives with the least amount of risk. Brightmore took our advice and over the next sixty days offered Rebecca many options including paid time off, a different role, and additional safety measures, among others.
As Polished Interactions had predicted, Rebecca declined all offers from the company and resigned. Less than two months later she filed a wrongful termination suit stating that our client violated the ADA, by refusing to accommodate her disability. Anticipating this, Polished Interactions had been preparing from the beginning.
Strategy and Execution
When Rebecca had initially requested to work remotely, we advised Brightmore to acknowledge her request in writing as well as oblige. Once travel resumed and Rebecca continued to request remote work, we worked with our client to offer Rebecca many options that made sense for both Brightmore and Rebecca. By helping our client engage in a reasonable accommodation discussion, we successfully documented and offered viable options for Rebecca.
After Rebecca had left the company and filed suit, we sat down with Brightmore to understand the culture and overall leadership of the company. We found that this was an incredibly fast-paced organization with a results-driven culture to which Rebecca had been informed many times prior to accepting the role.
We reviewed all documents Rebecca had previously signed, watched recorded Zoom calls, reviewed text messages, and went through her prior performance reviews. We also found that the job description at Rebecca’s time of hire displayed the expectation of 25% travel. This aided our objective in disputing her claim as it showed she was clear on the expectations of the role.
After discussing the case with our legal partners, we determined the best strategy for achieving our client’s desired outcomes and reached out to the company’s attorney to build the defense.
The Result
Polished Interactions’ early involvement with Brightmore was a crucial factor in successfully building a strong defense. After providing Brightmore’s attorney with the steps taken and the documentation collected over several months, the attorney said that Polished Interactions had “played an excellent game of chess”. Additionally, with all of the documents prepared and organized, Polished Interactions helped cut down the attorney’s billable hour fees, saving Brightmore money in legal fees.
Polished Interactions was able to:
Help Brightmore create compliance and regulatory documents that acknowledged their responsibility with the ADA.
Properly document Brightmore’s acknowledgment of Rebecca’s request.
Train the leadership team on basic HR Compliance regulations.
Aid Brightmore in engaging in a reasonable accommodation discussion.
Advise Brightmore to offer the employee three viable options that accommodated her and did not cause any undue hardship to themselves.
*Company and employee names are changed to maintain confidentiality.