You told your employer you needed something to keep doing your job. Maybe it was a modified schedule to attend dialysis treatments. Maybe it was a standing desk because of a back condition. Maybe it was permission to work remotely two days a week while recovering from surgery. The request was reasonable. Your doctor supported it. And instead of working with you to figure out a solution, your employer started treating you differently. Your workload shifted. Your supervisor’s tone changed. A few weeks later, you were gone. The Mundaca Law Firm represents New York City employees who were terminated after requesting accommodations for disabilities and medical conditions, and the pattern these cases follow is disturbingly consistent. The employee asks for help. The employer decides the employee is now a problem. The termination follows.
The Legal Obligation Employers Try to Avoid
Federal law under the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the business. The ADA defines disability broadly: a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. This covers conditions ranging from mobility impairments and chronic pain to diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, PTSD, major depression, and autoimmune disorders.
A reasonable accommodation is any modification to the job, the workplace, or the way things are normally done that enables the employee to perform the essential functions of their position. The law doesn’t require the employer to give the employee exactly what they requested. It requires the employer to engage in an interactive process, a back-and-forth conversation to identify an accommodation that works for both sides. The employer can propose alternatives. They can ask for medical documentation. They can evaluate whether the accommodation would fundamentally alter the nature of the job or create an undue financial or operational burden.
What the employer cannot do is skip the conversation entirely and fire the employee instead. Refusing to engage in the interactive process is itself a violation of the ADA. An employer who receives an accommodation request and responds by terminating the employee has failed the most basic obligation the law imposes.
Why New York City’s Law Goes Further
The New York City Human Rights Law provides disability protections that exceed the ADA in several significant ways, and for employees working in the five boroughs, these differences can determine whether a case is viable.
The NYCHRL defines disability more broadly than the ADA. Under city law, a disability is any physical, medical, mental, or psychological impairment, or a history or record of such impairment. There’s no requirement that the impairment “substantially limit” a major life activity the way the ADA requires. A condition that causes functional difficulties but doesn’t rise to the ADA’s threshold may still qualify as a disability under city law. This broader definition brings more employees and more conditions within the statute’s protection.
The NYCHRL also covers perceived disability. An employer who fires an employee because they believe the employee has a disabling condition is liable even if the employee doesn’t actually have the condition. An employer who terminates someone because they seem depressed, or because they assume a cancer diagnosis will lead to extended absences, has discriminated based on perceived disability regardless of whether the employee meets the clinical definition.
The city law’s standard for evaluating discrimination claims is also more favorable. Under the NYCHRL, the employee needs to show that the disability or the accommodation request was a motivating factor in the adverse action, not the sole or primary cause. This means a termination motivated by a mix of legitimate business reasons and disability-related bias is still actionable under city law. The ADA’s federal framework uses a higher causation standard that can be harder to meet.
For employees in New York City, the NYCHRL is often the strongest available tool. The Mundaca Law Firm evaluates every accommodation-related termination case under all applicable frameworks, federal, state, and city, to determine which provides the best path forward.
What the Interactive Process Is Supposed to Look Like
The interactive process isn’t a formality. It’s a substantive obligation that requires good faith participation from the employer. When an employee requests an accommodation, the employer is expected to engage in a dialogue to understand the employee’s limitations, identify the essential functions of the job, and explore possible accommodations that would allow the employee to perform those functions.
In practice, this looks like the employer asking for medical documentation from the employee’s healthcare provider describing the condition and the functional limitations. It looks like a conversation about what the employee needs and what the employer can provide. It looks like the employer proposing alternatives if the requested accommodation isn’t feasible. It looks like the employer explaining, specifically and with evidence, why a particular accommodation would create an undue hardship if that’s the conclusion they reach.
What it doesn’t look like is silence. It doesn’t look like an employer who receives the request, says nothing for three weeks, and then fires the employee for performance issues that were never raised before. It doesn’t look like a supervisor who tells the employee to “just push through it” or suggests they might be happier somewhere else. It doesn’t look like an HR department that treats the accommodation request as a disciplinary matter rather than a collaborative problem to solve.
When an employer fails to engage in the interactive process in good faith, that failure is independent evidence of discrimination. Courts and the NYC Commission on Human Rights recognize that an employer who refuses to participate in the required dialogue has effectively denied the accommodation without the analysis the law demands.
Common Employer Tactics After an Accommodation Request
Employees who request accommodations often describe a shift in how they’re treated that begins almost immediately after the request. The shift is subtle at first. The supervisor stops including them in planning conversations. Assignments that were routine start going to someone else. The employee’s workload is either stripped down to make them feel expendable or ramped up to set them up to fail.
Performance documentation appears. An employee who received positive reviews for years is suddenly placed on a performance improvement plan. The PIP addresses issues that were never raised during normal supervision and sets benchmarks that are unrealistic given the employee’s medical situation. The PIP isn’t a genuine effort to help the employee improve. It’s a paper trail designed to justify the termination the employer has already decided to make.
The employer may also challenge the disability itself. They question whether the condition is real. They demand excessive medical documentation beyond what the law requires. They refuse to accept the employee’s doctor’s recommendations and insist on an independent medical examination. These tactics are designed to exhaust the employee into withdrawing the request or to create enough procedural friction that the employee appears uncooperative.
Some employers take a more direct route. They eliminate the employee’s position shortly after the accommodation request, claiming restructuring or budget constraints. The position is then refilled, sometimes under a different title, by someone without a disability. The employer points to the organizational change as the reason for the termination and insists the timing was coincidental.
Each of these patterns can support a claim that the termination was motivated by the accommodation request or the underlying disability rather than the pretextual reason the employer offers.
What You Should Do If This Happened to You
If you were terminated after requesting an accommodation, the evidence you preserve now will shape the strength of your case later.
Save every communication related to your accommodation request: the initial request, the employer’s responses (or lack of them), medical documentation you provided, and any emails or messages showing the shift in how you were treated afterward. If the interactive process was conducted in meetings rather than in writing, write down what was said while the conversations are still fresh in your memory. Note who was present, what was discussed, and whether the employer proposed any alternatives or simply rejected your request.
Obtain your personnel file. Compare your performance evaluations before and after the accommodation request. If your reviews were positive for years and suddenly turned negative, that contrast is evidence. If a PIP appeared shortly after the request, the timing and content of the plan are relevant.
Pay attention to what happened to your position after you were terminated. Was it refilled? Was it refilled by someone without a disability? Was it renamed and given to an existing employee? The employer’s actions after the termination reveal whether the stated reason was genuine.
Filing deadlines apply. EEOC complaints must generally be filed within 300 days of the termination. Claims with the NYC Commission on Human Rights and the New York State Division of Human Rights typically have a one-year filing window. These deadlines are enforced strictly, and missing them can extinguish a claim that would otherwise have been strong.
How The Mundaca Law Firm Handles Accommodation-Related Terminations
The Mundaca Law Firm’s New York City office investigates terminations that follow accommodation requests by examining the full timeline: when the request was made, how the employer responded, whether the interactive process was conducted in good faith, how the employee’s treatment changed after the request, and whether the employer’s stated reason for the termination holds up against the evidence. The firm pursues claims under the ADA, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the NYCHRL, applying whichever framework provides the strongest protection based on the facts.
If you were fired after asking for an accommodation for a disability or medical condition, contact The Mundaca Law Firm to discuss what happened. The consultation will help you understand whether the employer met its legal obligations, whether the termination was connected to your request, and what remedies may be available before the filing deadlines pass. The law required your employer to work with you. If they fired you instead, that’s a choice the law holds them accountable for.