ADA & FMLA Compliance Failure: How a Cancer Diagnosis Exposed a Deep HR Structural Breakdown
When the EEOC announces a disability discrimination settlement, the press release is usually brief. But behind every settlement is a story about an employer whose HR infrastructure was not prepared for the complexity of ADA and FMLA compliance. In this case, a long‑term production employee undergoing chemotherapy was terminated after her employer, a major poultry processor, failed to recognize her need for protected medical leave. The matter ultimately resolved for $230,000, but the real cost was the structural failure that made the lawsuit inevitable.
A Long‑Term Employee, a Language Barrier, and a Cancer Diagnosis
The employee had worked in the production department since 2009. She was part of a large segment of the production workforce that lacked the ability to speak English. Rather than providing formal language access or ensuring that HR and leave processes were accessible to employees with limited English proficiency, the employer relied on bilingual coworkers as informal translators. For years, this patchwork system went without incident — until 2023, when she was diagnosed with cancer and needed time off for treatment.
When the employee learned of her cancer diagnosis, she notified her employer that she would need time away from work for chemotherapy. Because she could not speak English, her daughter assisted her in communicating with HR who then directed the employee to their third-party leave administrator. The employee and her daughter then attempted to open a claim with the employer’s third‑party leave administrator. They followed the vendor’s instructions. They called repeatedly to follow up on the claim. The vendor never opened the claim and was unresponsive to their inquiries.
During this period, the employee missed work for chemotherapy and recovery. She provided medical documentation excusing her absences. But because the claim had never been opened — and because no one in HR recognized the ADA or FMLA implications — the employer continued to assign attendance points for every medically‑necessary absence—essentially building a disciplinary file against the employee based on what should have been protected absences. No one paused the attendance points system. No one escalated the medical information. No one intervened when they learned the leave claim had not been opened. When the employee was presented with a final warning for poor attendance about ten days before her termination, she restated her need for leave for chemotherapy treatment and provided the employer with medical certification directly. The employer ignored it.
She returned to work briefly, then missed additional days for treatment. The employer removed her from the schedule and terminated her. She was not informed of the termination. When she later returned to work with updated medical documentation, hoping to clarify her treatment schedule and resume work, the HR representative — inexperienced, unsupported, and operating far outside their competency — simply upheld the termination and told her to leave the premises.
The leave vendor remained unresponsive throughout. The employer believed the leave request was being handled. It was not.
This is the story behind the lawsuit — and it reveals the structural breakdown that made the outcome inevitable. A national employer who outsourced their high-risk HR functions without oversight, and limited their employee relations staff to inexperienced administrative HR staff. What could possibly go wrong?
ADA Compliance Requires Expertise, Not Just Policies
No doubt during the initial EEOC investigation, the employer dug in their heels and relied on the employee’s failure to open a claim to escape responsibility for their unlawful conduct. They probably pointed to their ADA and FMLA policies, no doubt written in English, to support their position. They refused the EEOC’s efforts at mediation to resolve the claim forcing the EEOC to file a lawsuit to hold them accountable. The problem with relying on rigid policies is that those policies don’t excuse an employer’s unlawful conduct when they have constructive notice that the employee has attempted to exercise their rights but was unable to do so through no fault of their own. But the person who was told about this lacked a fundamental understanding of this huge liability trigger, and simply upheld the termination. See this Article on What Employers Should do When an Employee seeks an Accommodation after Termination»
The ADA is not intuitive. It is not a “common sense” statute. It requires trained HR professionals who understand:
What triggers the ADA
How to recognize a request for accommodation
How to evaluate medical documentation
How to supervise third‑party leave vendors
How to reinstate employees when new medical information emerges immediately after termination.
Administrative or inexperienced HR cannot do this. They can manage onboarding, paperwork, and attendance tracking — but they cannot carry the weight of ADA compliance. When employers place ADA responsibility on administrative HR, they create exposure that is both predictable and preventable. See our ADA Compliance Series to understand more about the intricacies of ADA compliance.
Attendance Policies and Medical Leave: Why Notice Is the Real Liability Trigger
The employee missed work for chemotherapy. She provided medical documentation. She notified the employer of her diagnosis. Under the ADA, these absences should have triggered the interactive process and a review of reasonable accommodations, including leave.
Instead, the employer continued to assign attendance points for every cancer‑related absence.
The issue was not the attendance system itself. Modern attendance systems can be overridden, escalated, or paused — but only when HR recognizes that the absences are ADA‑ or FMLA‑protected. In this case, the person responsible for attendance decisions did not understand the legal significance of the medical information being provided. They treated the absences as routine call‑outs rather than medically‑necessary leave. When the employee challenged this upon being notified of her termination, the inexperienced HR person probably took the position “too late, you’re not my problem anymore”
Employees cannot comply with policies they do not understand, and HR cannot override systems when they do not recognize the statutory trigger.
Partner with CHRO to ensure your leave processes are legally defensible. Contact us for a confidential consultation»
Third‑Party Leave Vendors and Employer Liability: Why Unopened Claims Still Create ADA and FMLA Exposure
The most revealing structural breakdown in this matter was the employer’s decision to pair an administrative‑level HR function with reliance on a large, high‑volume leave management vendor. That combination is inherently unstable. Administrative HR can manage routine tasks — but they cannot supervise ADA or FMLA compliance, monitor vendor performance, or intervene when a claim stalls.
On the other side of the equation was a national leave vendor whose intake and claims departments are usually staffed with entry‑level personnel. These vendors process thousands of claims at once. Their intake representatives follow scripts. Their claims teams operate in silos. Their portals experience glitches. When an employee struggles to open a claim, or when the vendor fails to escalate medical information, or when a claim stalls because the portal never generated a case number, the vendor does not fix the problem — and administrative HR does not know how or when to intervene.
That is exactly what happened here. The employee attempted to open a claim. Her daughter attempted to open a claim. The vendor never opened it. And because the employer had paired administrative HR with a vendor staffed by entry‑level personnel, no one recognized that the claim had stalled. No one escalated. No one intervened. No one connected the dots between the medical documentation, the attendance points, and the statutory obligations.
And here is the legal reality employers routinely miss: If the employer knows about the disability or the need for leave, the employer is responsible — even if the vendor never opened the claim, even if the employee struggled with the portal, and even if the failure was caused by an IT glitch or user error. The ADA does not pause because a vendor’s system malfunctioned. The FMLA does not pause because a vendor’s intake representative failed to escalate. The employer owns the liability the moment they learn of the medical condition.
And although the enforcement action focused on disability discrimination — because that is the statute the EEOC enforces — the underlying facts also implicate FMLA interference and retaliation. The employee’s need for leave was clearly FMLA‑qualifying, and the employer’s failure to ensure the claim was opened and processed would have created FMLA liability as well. The EEOC did not pursue it because the EEOC does not regulate the FMLA, but the exposure was present.
This is precisely why I wrote: → How to Choose a Third‑Party Administrator for ADA & FMLA Compliance
The issue is not “overreliance” on vendors. The issue is that the employer’s internal staff responsible for ADA and FMLA compliance often have only a rudimentary understanding of what these statutes require.
Termination After Medical Disclosure: How Inexperienced HR Magnified Liability
The most telling moment in this case occurred after the termination. The employee returned with medical documentation explaining her chemotherapy schedule. She attempted to clarify her need for leave. She attempted to reengage.
And the HR representative — inexperienced, unsupported, and operating far outside their competency — simply upheld the termination.
A trained HR professional would have reopened the interactive process, reinstated the employee, corrected the attendance points, investigated the vendor failure, and escalated the matter to compliance or legal. Instead, the termination was affirmed because the person handling the matter did not know they had the authority — or the obligation — to do anything else.
This is why I wrote: → How Promoting Inexperienced Personnel into HR Roles Creates Legal Exposure
ADA compliance cannot be delegated to someone who does not understand the complexities of complying with the statute.
Language Access and Leave Rights: Why Multilingual Workforces Require Formal Communication Systems
The employee was Haitian and did not speak English. The employer relied on bilingual coworkers as informal translators. The leave process was never explained in a language she understood. The vendor’s instructions were inaccessible. The attendance system was never contextualized. The ADA and FMLA rights were never communicated. If your job descriptions do not require proficiency in English, you need to ensure your policies are provided in an accessible way—bilingual HR staff, onsite interpreters, policies drafted in languages your employees can understand.
ADA and FMLA compliance starts with accessible communication — not “we tried,” not “we told her to call the vendor” not “she didn’ follow policy.”
Protect your organization from ADA and FMLA liability—we can help you strengthen your HR infrastructure today. Contact us for details.
Settlement Outcome: The Cost of Structural HR Failures
The employer resolved the matter for $230,000 and agreed to policy revisions, training, and improved communication practices. What’s telling about this amount is that the employee was low-paid worker and had been out of work for three years when the case settled. While we don’t know her salary, I am pretty sure she was not making $76,000 a year, maybe half that amount if she was lucky so the settlement covered more than backpay. The settlement reached reflects the real loss the employee incurred—her loss of health insurance when she needed it the MOST.
Every employer is responsible for any foreseeable damages due to an unlawful employment practice, such as terminating an employee in violation of the ADA. Out-of-pocket medical costs incurred because of loss of insurance are perfectly foreseeable, especially when the employer knows they are terminating an employee in the midst of chemotherapy.
The EEOC also sought to correct the obvious structural failures evident in the employer’s HR infrastructure.
An unsupervised leave vendor
HR personnel who did not understand ADA or FMLA
A multilingual workforce without accessible communication
A failure to reinstate the employee when new medical information emerged
These are structural failures — not isolated mistakes. Part of every EEOC settlement is a correction of employer practices that are likely to result in future noncompliance. That’s why they demanded policy revisions, training for HR staff, policies in multiple languages, and improved communication practices. This is an employer with 5000+ employees, more than a billion dollars in annual revenue, and dozens of HR staff including HR generalists, HR managers, and HR Directors—the EEOC determined that their enormous HR department needed training on ADA compliance and made it a condition of settlement! See the EEOC’s press release on this case here»
Key Employer Takeaway: ADA & FMLA Compliance Is a Professional Skillset
ADA and FMLA compliance is not a workflow. It is not a vendor. It is not an attendance system. It is not a form. It is not a policy. ADA and FMLA compliance is a competency that requires experienced HR professionals along with a compliance-proof accommodations and leave request process and workflow. Where the FMLA is highly technical, but relatively simple to understand, the ADA is fluid, abstract; it requires creativity, compassion and a good faith effort from employers to preserve the employee’s employment. Employers don’t get to hide behind rigid policies and incompetent vendors when called to account for unlawful conduct.
So when employers staff their ADA and FMLA compliance function with individuals who do not understand the statutes, they create exposure that is both predictable and preventable.
If your organization uses:
Attendance point systems
Third‑party leave administrators
Multilingual workforces
Administrative HR instead of trained HR professionals
You must ensure that your compliance structure can support this. Otherwise, you are one medical disclosure away from a similar outcome.
If your organization is relying on administrative HR to manage ADA, FMLA, or ERISA‑sensitive employee issues—or trusting a high‑volume leave vendor to “handle it”—you may be exposed. CHRO rebuilds your compliance infrastructure from the ground up, ensuring your managers, HR staff, and leave workflows are legally aligned and operationally sound. If you want to prevent a similar breakdown in your company, schedule a consultation and let’s stabilize your ADA, FMLA, and other HR processes before they become your next lawsuit.
People Also Ask (PAA)
1. What ADA and FMLA mistakes did the employer make in this cancer‑related termination case?
The employer failed to recognize that the employee’s chemotherapy‑related absences were protected under both the ADA and the FMLA. They continued assigning attendance points, relied on a leave vendor that never opened the claim, and allowed an administrative HR representative to uphold the termination without understanding the legal implications.
2. How does an unopened leave claim create ADA and FMLA liability for employers?
If an employer knows about an employee’s medical condition or need for leave, they are responsible for ADA and FMLA compliance—even when a third‑party leave vendor fails to open the claim, mishandles the request, or experiences a system glitch. Liability attaches to the employer the moment they receive the medical information.
3. Why is pairing administrative HR with a high‑volume leave vendor a compliance risk?
Administrative HR lacks the training and judgment required to supervise ADA and FMLA compliance. High‑volume leave vendors often use entry‑level staff who follow scripts and miss critical medical details. When these two weaknesses combine, medically‑necessary leave requests stall, attendance systems continue running, and employees are terminated unlawfully.
4. How should employers handle ADA and FMLA leave for employees with limited English proficiency?
Employers must provide accessible communication—written, verbal, and procedural—in the employee’s language. Relying on bilingual coworkers as informal translators is not compliant. ADA and FMLA rights must be explained clearly, and leave processes must be accessible to multilingual workforces.
5. What should HR do when an employee returns with new medical documentation after a termination?
A trained HR professional should immediately reopen the interactive process, evaluate the medical information, and determine whether reinstatement is required. Post‑termination medical disclosures often trigger ADA obligations, and failure to reassess can create significant liability.
6. Can an employer face ERISA liability for mishandling leave when the health plan is self‑funded?
Yes. When an employer operates a self‑funded health plan, any action that appears designed to push out high‑cost claimants—such as terminating an employee undergoing expensive cancer treatment—can create exposure under ERISA’s interference and fiduciary‑duty provisions. This is a separate cause of action from ADA or FMLA claims and can arise even when the EEOC does not pursue it, because ERISA is enforced through federal court litigation, not by the EEOC.
If your budget isn’t getting you the HR expertise you actually need, there’s a better solution. Don’t settle for an HR Manager or Director who needs you to hold their hand or who’s flailing in the wind. Bring in CHRO — and get the competency your current budget won’t allow on a full-time basis. Contact us for a confidential consultation.
