Background
Keisha Lewis, a black employee with a kidney condition, worked for the Indiana Department of Transportation from 2014 until her termination in 2022. She requested remote-work accommodations due to her health issues but subsequently refused to process checks and missed meetings. Her supervisors documented her insubordination, poor performance, and a backlog of over four hundred outstanding parcels. The Department terminated her for poor performance and insubordination. Lewis sued alleging disability discrimination, retaliation, and racial discrimination under the Rehabilitation Act, Title VII, and Section 1981. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and Lewis appealed.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo. Regarding the Rehabilitation Act claim, the court clarified that the statute requires sole causation, meaning the disability must be the only reason for the termination, not merely a motivating factor. Lewis could not meet this standard because her termination was driven by her insubordination and performance failures. On the pretext claim, the court found the employer had legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the discharge and that Lewis failed to prove the reasons were a lie. For the Title VII racial discrimination and retaliation claims, the court noted that Lewis waived her arguments by failing to develop them with specific evidence or engage with the district court’s reasoning. She offered no evidence of similarly situated employees treated more favorably or of retaliatory motive.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces the high bar for proving disability discrimination under the Rehabilitation Act by requiring sole causation. It also underscores the necessity for plaintiffs to fully develop and preserve all arguments regarding pretext and comparative evidence in district court to avoid waiver on appeal.
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