How Broad Is The ADA’s Ban on Retaliation? Court Weighs In

A new decision from a federal appeals court has an important message for HR pros about the scope of the ADA’s ban on retaliation.

The message: The ADA’s anti-retaliation provision is expansive, and it can even be used by employees who do not have an ADA disability.

Retaliation Case: Employee Goes to Bat for Friend

For more than a decade, Monica Gray worked as a claim specialist for State Farm.

Gray did good work; she was regarded as a “higher-level performer” with superior knowledge and technical skills. She also served as a lead resource for other employees.

But that didn’t prevent her from being fired in 2017. Why? She says it was because she helped a co-worker assert her rights under the ADA. A lower court ruled against her, but a federal appeals court revived her allegation of unlawful retaliation.

Gray worked with Sonya Mauter, a friend who was part of a different work team. Gray’s team was managed by Chris Martin, and Mauter’s team was managed by Joe Kyle.

Accommodation Gets Pulled

For some time, State Farm granted Mauter the ADA accommodation of being excused from working overtime. That changed in 2017, when Kyle told her that State Farm would no longer grant that accommodation.

The appeals court’s decision paints an unflattering picture of Kyle. It says that in addition to pulling the accommodation, Kyle placed Mauter on leave until she agreed to work overtime; threatened her with termination if she did not agree to do so; and wrongfully told her she could not take FMLA leave.

Gray decided to help her friend. She researched the law, obtained relevant information from HR, and even filed an internal complaint against Kyle. The decision says Mauter told Kyle that Gray was helping her.

Did Supervisor Engage in Retaliation?

In November of 2017, Kyle stepped in to briefly supervise Gray’s team while Martin took a short vacation. Even though he was “not a stickler” when it came to State Farm’s timecard policies, the decision said, he took a microscope to Gray’s timekeeping record.

When he found three discrepancies, he reported them to Martin’s supervisor. That led to a deeper dive that showed another seven instances of timekeeping missteps.

The report of Gray’s discrepancies moved up the chain, and State Farm terminated Gray’s employment — purportedly for falsifying her timesheets.

Gray didn’t see things that way. She sued, insisting that she was let go in retaliation for helping Mauter assert her ADA rights. She alleged that Kyle selectively reported her for behavior that others engaged in without penalty.

A federal district court granted State Farm’s motion for summary judgment, and Gray filed an appeal.

Appeals Court Revives ADA Retaliation Suit

The appeals court revived Gray’s retaliation claim.

It explained that to win, Gray had to show:

• She engaged in protected activity
• State Farm knew she did so, and
• State Farm let her go because she did so.

For purposes of defeating summary judgment, Gray checked all three of those boxes, the appeals court said.

Specifically, she engaged in protected activity by helping Mauter with her ADA accommodation issue; there was evidence that Kyle and others knew she did so; and the evidence of increased scrutiny, along with the timing of her termination, supported the allegation that she was released because she helped Mauter.

State Farm said it terminated Gray’s employment because she falsified her timecards, but Gray’s evidence of “differential scrutiny” raised a legitimate question about Kyle’s true motives, the court said.

There was also enough evidence for Gray to go forward with her claim that Kyle’s actions caused her termination, even though he was not the one who made the call to let her go.

She asserted a valid “cat’s paw” theory of discrimination, the court explained. This means there was evidence that a neutral decision maker took the adverse action against her based on Kyle’s alleged biased input.

The lower court’s ruling against Gray was reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings.

Key Takeaways

Here are some important takeaways from this ruling for HR pros.

• The ADA’s ban on retaliation is broad. The statute specifically bans employers from discriminating against employees because they oppose an act or practice that the law forbids. The ADA actually goes a step further by including a separate provision that further specifically bans interference, coercion or intimidation. Remember that assisting others is protected activity under the law. It might seem a bit counterintuitive for a law against disability discrimination to protect nondisabled employees as well, but as this case shows, it makes perfect sense. Employers may not retaliate against someone because they helped a co-worker assert their ADA rights.
• Be careful about turning up the heat on an employee right after they engage in a protected activity. The timing of an adverse action plays a role in determining whether that action was unlawfully retaliatory.
• Know what employees must show to prove retaliation. The basic elements: protected activity, knowledge by the employer, and an adverse action that was motivated by the protected activity. If those elements are established, the burden is on the employer to show it had a legitimate, non-pretextual reason for the challenged job action.
• Understand the “cat’s paw” theory of liability. This is where the actual decision maker may not have had a bad motive, but was influenced by a bad actor. This is the theory of liability asserted by Gray in this litigation.
• Selectively enforcing workplace policies is always a terrible idea and is a sure invitation for trouble. Employers should always make sure policies are applied consistently to all employees.

Gray v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., No. 24-3086 (6th Cir. 7/25/25).