When Your Emails Make the Case… for the Other Side

Flamethrower messages torpedo an ADA claim in this no-nonsense ruling from a federal appellate court.

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TL;DR: An adjunct professor accused her college of ADA discrimination after it declined to renew her contract. But the Second Circuit quickly dismissed her claims—thanks in no small part to her own emails, which read like exhibits for the defense. As the court reminded us: “The ADA does not excuse workplace misconduct because the misconduct is related to a disability.”

📄 Read the court’s summary order

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📬 Inbox Outbursts That Tanked The Lawsuit

An adjunct professor at a New York community college alleged that she was passed over for fall teaching assignments because of her heart condition and complaints about discrimination. But what ultimately did her case in wasn’t the facts—it was her own behavior.

Among other things, she emailed administrators:

• “I can be a pushy dirt bag.”
• “If you ever want to get rid of anyone (fire them, let them go, kiss them goodbye), I can help you do that without getting sued … I’m very good at it.”
• “What the hell is wrong with you people?”
• And this closer:
  

  “You would not want to sit across the table from me in a deposition. I’m a son-of-a-sea cook.”

She also demanded more than $74,342.40 in backpay for office hours and accused a department chair of conspiring against her based on prior unrelated litigation.

🧑‍⚖️ The Court Had No Trouble Dismissing the Case

The professor sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and a parallel state law, alleging disability discrimination and retaliation. The Second Circuit assumed—for argument’s sake—that she might have had enough to get past the first legal hurdle. But what derailed her claim wasn’t the legal standard. It was her own conduct.

The court pointed to multiple inflammatory emails: aggressive, sarcastic, even threatening. This wasn’t just a lapse in judgment—it was a pattern that, in the court’s view, gave the college every reason to end the employment relationship. Her contract wasn’t denied because of her health or her complaints. It was denied because her behavior made her impossible to keep around.

The court noted that “the ADA does not excuse workplace misconduct because the misconduct is related to a disability.”

🧠 Employer Takeaways

✅ ADA compliance doesn’t require tolerating misconduct. While the ADA protects employees with disabilities, it does not insulate them from discipline or termination based on inappropriate or disruptive behavior—especially when well-documented.

✅ Documentation is your best defense. The college prevailed in part because it kept and presented contemporaneous, unfiltered examples of the behavior at issue.

✅ Tone matters in workplace communication. Courts and juries take emails at face value. What might feel cathartic in the moment can doom a plaintiff’s lawsuit … or become their Exhibit A at trial.

Even if the underlying complaint involves a legitimate medical condition, the Second Circuit made one thing crystal clear: the ADA isn’t a license for employees to burn bridges—or inboxes.