10th Circuit: Lack of diagnosis did not defeat ADA leave claim

By Daniel Okafor

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reversed dismissal of an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) case, holding that a reasonable jury could find A&A Appliance had notice of a former store employee’s disability without an exact medical diagnosis.

What evidence put the employer on notice?

The employee filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which brought the case against A&A Appliance. In March 2020, she requested leave to care for her son, who had pneumonia. She later told a human-resources (HR) representative that she had become ill herself, requiring multiple emergency-room visits.

A&A granted her 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). As her June 2020 return date approached, she continued to report feeling ill and unable to work and asked for an extension. A&A repeated the return date and offered her the choice to resign. She did not respond, and the company later terminated her.

The record included several emails and text messages to HR staff describing her symptoms, a doctor’s note and a phone call in which she described work limitations. Company phone records confirmed that the call lasted five minutes, even though the HR representative testified that she did not recall speaking with the employee on the relevant day.

A district court ruled against the EEOC, finding that the agency had not shown that the employee notified A&A of a disability or requested a plausibly reasonable accommodation—a workable adjustment, such as modified leave. The 10th Circuit reversed, saying a reasonable jury could find that she had informed the employer of her disability and that her leave request was reasonable.

What did the appellate court decide?

At the time, the employee was unsure whether she had COVID-19, vocal cord paralysis or gastritis, and she did not provide a formal diagnosis. Formal diagnosis was not essential. The inquiry instead turns on whether the employer knows enough about the condition to conclude that a disability exists.

After termination, her medical team determined that she did not have a gastrointestinal disorder, meaning a digestive-system condition. But A&A’s termination letter directly acknowledged that possibility. The 10th Circuit said the fact “could support a jury determination that [A&A Appliance] indeed knew [the employee] had an ongoing disability and was not simply feeling unwell.”

The employee’s request to return to work “a few weeks later,” so her doctor could determine the cause of her symptoms, also could have been reasonable, the court said. Nothing she communicated suggested that she expected testing to reveal a condition requiring more than a few weeks of treatment. The appeals court therefore left notice and accommodation reasonableness for a jury.

How do FMLA and ADA interact?

The case shows how the two statutes can overlap. Federal courts and the EEOC have long noted that the ADA may permit additional leave for employees who exhaust the FMLA’s 12-week entitlement. The extension is not automatic; the request still must be reasonable.

In 2022, the EEOC announced a $65,000 settlement in a case involving two employees it alleged were fired after they could not return to work because of disabilities when their FMLA leave ended. The employees had requested additional leave of one week and three weeks, respectively.

Not every extension clears that bar. In a 2025 decision, the 4th Circuit held that a request for disability leave until “September or October” was not specific enough to make the proposed extension reasonable. That separate ruling shows that additional leave may be available, but a request stated only in those terms does not establish reasonableness.

What changes for employers and workers?

For employees, the practical lesson is evidentiary: emails, texts, symptom descriptions, a doctor’s note and a proposed return schedule can show disability notice before diagnosis. For employers, those records may establish that a condition was more than ordinary illness. Neither point guarantees a discrimination finding; the jury still weighs whether the request was reasonable.

Looking ahead, a jury will assess whether the employer had adequate notice and whether the proposed leave was workable. The 10th Circuit did not decide the discrimination claim; it ruled only that the evidence was sufficient for a jury, making the leave record the center of the next phase.