Fifth Circuit Says Telework Is Not A Presumptively Reasonable Accommodation (US)

Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced many employees to temporarily work from home, employers have struggled to bring those remote employees back to the office. Since the return to business as (almost) usual, many employees have asked to extend their flexible teleworking arrangements, sometimes by requesting remote work as a disability accommodation. Those employees would do well to heed a recent Fifth Circuit decision, Hayes v. GStek, Inc., No. 25-30392 (5th Cir. May 8, 2026), which warns that “[t]he COVID pandemic did not change the reality that in-person work is presumed to be an essential function of most jobs.”

Albert Hayes was an IT systems administrator for GStek, Inc., an Army contractor. Hayes was permitted temporarily to telework due to the COVID pandemic, but in February 2022, the Army and GStek transitioned away from telework and Hayes was required to return to in-person work. Hayes claimed to be “overstimulated by his return to the office” and, three months later, he was diagnosed with autism, major depressive disorder and social anxiety disorder. After completing intensive inpatient psychiatric treatment, Hayes submitted a reasonable accommodation request, supported by a physician’s note, asking for permission to telework. Although GStek initially was inclined to grant the request, the Army determined it “would not be in the best interest of the organization to allow full-time teleworking.” GStek yielded to the wishes of its client and instead granted Hayes permission to work a hybrid in-office and remote work schedule. Hayes contended that his limited time working in the office caused him to have a “mental breakdown,” after which he and his physician agreed he could only work from home. GStek terminated Hayes the next day. Hayes then sued GStek for disability discrimination, alleging, among other things, that it failed to reasonably accommodate his disabilities.

The trial court concluded that GStek had reasonably accommodated Hayes by allowing him to work a hybrid schedule, but, in addition, determined that Hayes was not a “qualified individual” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) even with a reasonable accommodation. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The appellate court concluded that “in-person attendance is an essential function of Hayes’s job” because the Army, which GStek served as a contractor, had determined that teleworking full-time was not in its best interests. The Court emphasized that allowing Hayes to telework would “open the floodgates of employee requests to telework and would thereby potentially damage GStek’s contractual relationship with the Army.”

Not only did the Court find the Army-customer’s position with respect to teleworking to be persuasive evidence of Hayes’ essential job functions, but the Court went a step further and observed that full-time teleworking “is rarely a reasonable accommodation.” The Court was persuaded that an employer’s ability to supervise its workers and communicate effectively with them were reasonable bases for determining that full-time telework was not a reasonable accommodation, and since Hayes admitted he could not do his job anywhere but from home, he “was not a qualified person for the job, even with GStek’s generous accommodation of allowing him to work from home two to three days per week,” dooming his ADA failure-to-accommodate, discrimination and retaliation claims.

The decision is a welcome one for employers (at least in the Fifth Circuit) struggling to bring workers back to the office. Although individualized analysis is required when employees submit disability accommodation requests to telework, the decision provides a reminder that employers can consider factors like supervision, communication and customer preference when determining whether full-time or part-time telework is reasonable. Although bright-line tests should be avoided, it is heartening to see an appellate court agree that temporary solutions implemented to protect public health during a worldwide pandemic did “not change the reality that in-person work is presumed to be an essential function of most jobs.”

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