Deciding too early that accommodation is impossible can shape everything that follows. This case shows why courts often let juries sort it out.
In a recent ADA decision from the Northern District of Illinois, an employer decided an injured employee could not return as a bus operator under her medical restrictions. After that decision, the employer relied on its absence-without-leave policy to terminate her. The court refused to end the case at summary judgment.
TL;DR: An employer concluded an injured employee could not return as a bus operator under her medical restrictions and later fired her under an absence policy. The court denied summary judgment, holding that a jury could decide whether temporary light-duty work was available and whether disability played a role in the termination.
đź“„ Read the decision
An injury between shifts followed by a hard stop on return-to-work options
The employee worked in a safety-sensitive job that required driving a commercial vehicle. In 2020, she was injured between two scheduled shifts while waiting to begin her second shift. She could no longer drive a bus, and the incident triggered her preexisting post-traumatic stress disorder.
She remained out of work until she was terminated in 2022.
During that time, the employer decided she could not return unless she could perform her original job. Requests for accommodation and leave were denied. Only after that did the employer rely on its absence policy to end the employment relationship.
She sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Why the employer’s attendance-only explanation fell apart
The employer argued the case was simple. The employee had not worked for more than a year and was terminated under a neutral attendance policy. The court rejected that framing because it skipped questions the ADA requires courts to answer before getting to attendance.
The court focused on two unresolved issues.
First, whether the employee was qualified for other work at the time of termination, including temporary light-duty assignments.
Second, whether the termination decision was tied to her medical restrictions rather than her absence alone.
Those questions mattered because of how the employer framed the employee’s return-to-work options.
At a meeting shortly before termination, the employee testified that her supervisor told her:
“[u]nless you come back full-time driving a bus, we’re not going to let you back in.”
At that point, the employee had been medically cleared to work with restrictions. The real dispute was whether other work should have been considered.
The court did not say attendance was illegitimate or that the employer lacked a business reason to terminate. Attendance problems can justify termination, even when they stem from a medical condition. But a jury could find that the employee’s medical restrictions shaped the employer’s return-to-work decision first and that attendance was relied on only after accommodation was taken off the table.
Under the ADA, disability need only be a reason, not the only reason, for the termination. That distinction kept the disparate treatment claim alive.
Courts often view return-to-work positions framed as “full duty only” as evidence that accommodation was never meaningfully considered.
Why the employer could not rule out light-duty work
The failure-to-accommodate claim stood on a separate footing.
The employer argued there was no other work the employee could do. That argument depended on a temporary light-duty program and the employer’s position that the employee did not qualify.
The court was not persuaded.
A jury could find the employee was on duty when she was injured, that her condition was temporary, and that her medical updates could support a return to work within six months. The record showed improvement shortly before termination and left room for disagreement about the recovery timeline.
The employee also testified that other injured workers performed clerical or janitorial tasks while recovering. Given the employer’s size and its own program, the court said:
“It strains credulity to imagine that no light duty position was available”
Because that factual dispute remained, the failure-to-accommodate claim also had to go to trial.
What this means for employers making return-to-work decisions
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Do not decide too early that accommodation is impossible. That decision frames everything that follows.
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Avoid “100% healed” return-to-work positions. Requiring full clearance instead of assessing work with limitations is a common ADA mistake.
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Keep the claims separate in your own analysis. A legitimate attendance reason does not erase a failure to accommodate.
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Look beyond the original job. Temporary or alternative work may matter.
Bottom line
This was not a case about whether an attendance policy can ever justify termination. It was a case about what happened before the policy came into play.
When accommodation questions are still unresolved, courts are reluctant to take the case away from a jury.
And once a jury is involved, employers lose control of the outcome.