When Remote Work Reaches A Jury, Flexibility Wins

By Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Picture a control room that never sleeps, its dispatchers routing gas emergency crews from kitchen tables and spare bedrooms while the city hums outside. Then picture those same employees told to report in person despite the same duties, the same tools, and the same results. Recently, a Brooklyn panel delivered a clear answer: a $3.1 million award against National Grid for denying continued telework to two dispatchers with medical conditions, as reported in the Brooklyn jury verdict and reflected in a district court order that sent the case to trial. The signal to leaders is direct. When a case built on hard performance evidence reaches a jury, remote work flexibility wins.

The power of the National Grid outcome lies in facts jurors can see. During the pandemic, dispatchers did the job from home with company systems and met the mark. After offices reopened, two workers with documented disabilities asked to keep teleworking and were refused. The Brooklyn jury verdict recounts the award, including punitive damages, and the case docket shows that both sides’ motions were denied so the dispute reached a jury on evidence, not abstractions. Jurors evaluate results, not slogans. If emergency routing worked from home using the same people, the same laptops, and the same workflows, a later insistence on presence reads like preference rather than necessity.

Other juries have recognized the same logic. In July 2024, a Charlotte panel awarded $22.1 million to a former managing director in the Wells Fargo verdict after concluding that a work-from-home accommodation linked to a medical condition was mishandled during a return-to-office push. Public enforcement has moved in parallel. In January 2023, the EEOC announced a consent decree against a facility-management employer that refused part-time telework for a high-risk worker, summarized in the agency settlement report. These matters do not turn on novel legal theories. They turn on records showing that the work got done, that the interactive process short-circuited, and that claimed hardship lacked proof.

For executives, that becomes an operational test. If teams prove the job works from home, offer task-level reasons for changing course and support them with quality metrics, response times, safety data, and customer outcomes. If collaboration is the rationale, identify the specific tasks requiring co-location and the alternatives you tried. Juries reward specifics over generalities and evidence over rhetoric.

The ADA does not grant a universal right to work from home. It requires an individualized assessment grounded in essential functions and undue hardship. Even on that traditional frame, the center of gravity has moved because the facts on the ground have changed. The EEOC’s longstanding telework guidance explains that working at home may be a reasonable accommodation when duties can be performed without significant difficulty or expense. The agency’s COVID-era technical assistance, last updated on May 15, 2023, states that the end of the public health emergency does not permit automatic termination of pandemic accommodations and that prior remote performance can be relevant when evaluating renewed requests. The foundational enforcement guidance centers the interactive process and places the burden on employers to demonstrate real difficulty or expense, not conjecture.

Appellate decisions now reflect this evidentiary turn. On August 9, 2024, the D.C. Circuit held that whether an agency’s take-it-or-leave-it telework offer was a reasonable accommodation presented a jury question based on disputed facts, as shown in the D.C. Circuit decision. On November 16, 2022, the Eighth Circuit emphasized that an employer’s own hybrid practices and the employee’s performance record can make telework feasibility a fact issue, as reflected in the Eighth Circuit opinion. On February 7, 2024, the Fourth Circuit affirmed that an environmental health and safety manager’s essential duties required on-site presence, clarifying that remote work remains unreasonable when core functions demand physical presence, in the Fourth Circuit decision. And in 2015, the Sixth Circuit’s en banc Ford Motor decision held that telecommuting was not reasonable for a highly interactive role tied to real-time collaboration.

Read together, these authorities do not 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 ran rather than ignored. National Grid entered trial with years of proven telework and an insufficient hardship showing, and the jury responded accordingly.

A Brooklyn verdict does not bind other courts in the technical sense, yet it still sets a precedent leaders will feel. The combination of punitive damages, a trial record focused on real performance, and public documentation will influence how counsel advise executives about return-to-office rules. Jurors view earlier remote success as a strong predictor of ongoing feasibility. They view failures in the interactive process as shortcuts around the statute. They view hardship claims skeptically when the same work already ran remotely. Regulators are steering in the same direction. 

The lesson is tactical. Update job descriptions so essential functions are explicit and connected to place, if they actually require in-person presence. However, avoid false statements about the need for presence if it’s not actually required, since the truth will come out in court. Preserve objective performance data for remote, hybrid, and on-site periods. Train managers to run the interactive process consistent with the EEOC’s enforcement guidance and technical assistance, propose concrete alternatives when full-time telework is not reasonable, and document each step. If a dispute ripens into litigation, that record will read as credibility rather than conjecture.

A jury just applied the modern ADA test with clarity. In the National Grid case, evidence of successful telework met the statute’s standard, and the employer’s hardship argument fell short under scrutiny. Recent examples like the Wells Fargo verdict and the EEOC’s Total Systems settlement confirm how records of remote success shape outcomes, while appellate authorities from the D.C. Circuit, Eighth Circuit, Fourth Circuit, and Sixth Circuit keep the line clear around essential functions. For leaders, the path forward is simple. Align policy with proof, run an honest interactive process grounded in tasks, and document the reasoning. When cases get to a jury, flexibility based on demonstrated performance becomes the winning argument.

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