Thursday, August 6th, 2026 — An Ohio appeals court has revived part of a disability discrimination lawsuit against the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, finding that a jury should decide whether the agency fulfilled its obligation to engage in a good-faith interactive process after an employee requested a workplace accommodation.
The employee, a compensation claims specialist, argued that an increasingly complex caseload aggravated his anxiety and depression. Beginning in 2021, he repeatedly asked management to transfer roughly half of his claims to another specialist, saying his assignments were significantly more difficult than those of a co-worker. Internal emails later became a focal point in the case, with supervisors characterizing his complaints as a performance issue rather than a disability accommodation request. One manager suggested the employee was building a record for future legal claims, while another urged a phone call instead of further written communication.
The agency eventually placed the employee on a 14-day action plan to address what supervisors described as a substantial backlog of overdue work. After his first required in-office day under the plan, the employee left work and began an extended leave of absence.
The Court of Appeals of Ohio concluded there is a genuine factual dispute over whether the bureau meaningfully evaluated the employee’s request to reduce or redistribute his workload. The court said a reasonable factfinder could determine the employer failed to participate in the required interactive process by treating the issue solely as a performance concern instead of exploring possible accommodations. That finding sends the failure-to-accommodate claim back to the trial court.
The appeals court affirmed dismissal of the employee’s other claims. It ruled that a paid five-day suspension, a performance improvement action plan, and the loss of a telework arrangement were not adverse employment actions because they did not affect his pay, hours, or essential job duties. As a result, his disability discrimination and retaliation claims could not proceed.
For insurance claims organizations, the decision underscores that accommodation requests involving workload or claim assignments deserve careful attention. Claims managers often focus on production metrics, backlogs, and quality standards, but disability accommodation obligations require a separate analysis. Courts may closely examine internal communications to determine whether supervisors considered requested accommodations, explored alternatives, and documented a genuine interactive process. The case also serves as a reminder that emails discussing an employee’s accommodation request can become important evidence in later litigation.
