Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessity that many jobs be performed, at least temporarily, from home, employers and employees have litigated numerous disputes over when work-from-home eliminates an essential function of a position (i.e., onsite attendance) or is a reasonable accommodation. On May 8, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision in Hayes v. GStek, Incorporated, No. 25-30392, affirming the dismissal of an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claims where the employee’s requested accommodation — full-time telework — would have eliminated an essential function of his job. The decision provides useful guidance for employers navigating ADA accommodation requests in a post-pandemic workplace.

Background

Albert Hayes worked as a contract IT systems administrator at Fort Polk’s Army Network Enterprise Center through GStek, Inc., an Army contractor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hayes was permitted to telework on a temporary basis. When GStek and the Army transitioned employees back to in-person work in February 2022, Hayes was overstimulated by his return to the office and was subsequently diagnosed with Autism, Major Depressive Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder. In August 2022, Hayes was admitted to inpatient psychiatric care due to suicidal ideations.

In October 2022, Hayes submitted a physician’s note and formally requested full-time telework as a reasonable accommodation. While GStek’s project manager was initially receptive, the Army determined that allowing full-time telework for its contractors’ employees would not be in the best interest of the organization. Because Army officials retained express authority to control conditions of GStek employees’ work at the base — including telework eligibility — GStek could not unilaterally grant the request. As a partial accommodation, GStek permitted Hayes to work from home two to three days per week beginning in December 2022.

In January 2023, Hayes had a mental breakdown and thereafter communicated to GStek that he needed to work from home full-time. After GStek received no response to Hayes’s inquiry about whether he needed to report to work, GStek terminated his employment on January 25, 2023, citing absenteeism and other concerns. Hayes filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, received a right-to-sue notice, and brought suit against GStek asserting three ADA claims: failure to accommodate, disability discrimination, and retaliation. The district court granted GStek’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed all three claims with prejudice. Hayes timely appealed.

The Fifth Circuit’s Analysis

Failure to Accommodate

To prevail on a failure-to-accommodate claim under the ADA, a plaintiff must show: (1) he is a qualified individual with a disability; (2) the disability and its limitations were known to the employer; and (3) the employer failed to make reasonable accommodations for those known limitations. The threshold question in Hayes was whether Hayes qualified as a “qualified individual” — meaning he could perform the essential functions of his job with or without a reasonable accommodation.

The court held that in-person attendance was an essential function of Hayes’s position. Several factors supported this conclusion. The Army — which retained contractual authority over conditions of employment at Fort Polk — determined that full-time telework was not in the organization’s interest. Current incumbents performing similar contract services for the Army did not receive telework accommodations. Hayes’s supervisor further noted that granting full-time telework to Hayes could open the door to similar requests from other employees, potentially jeopardizing GStek’s contractual relationship with the Army.

The court also emphasized that an employer’s ability to supervise employees is a relevant factor in assessing whether a telework accommodation is reasonable, and that direct supervision is inherently more difficult when employees never report to the office. Hayes himself acknowledged multiple instances where he and his supervisor were unable to communicate effectively.

Critically, the court reaffirmed the established principle that temporary pandemic-era telework arrangements do not permanently alter the essential functions of a job. Citing its earlier decision in Ray v. Columbia Brazoria Indep. Sch. Dist. (5th Cir. Apr. 28, 2025), the court stated that an employer’s decision to permit telework during COVID-19 for health and safety reasons does not mean that telework becomes a feasible or required accommodation going forward.

Because full-time telework would have required eliminating an essential in-person function of Hayes’s job, the court found it was not a reasonable accommodation. The court further noted that GStek satisfied its statutory obligation by providing the partial accommodation of two to three days of remote work per week — and that the ADA does not require an employer to provide an employee’s preferred accommodation, only a reasonable one.

Disability Discrimination

Hayes’s disability discrimination claim fared no better. Analyzed under the familiar McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, Hayes was required to establish, among other things, that he was a qualified individual for his position. Because the court had already determined that Hayes was not qualified — he could not perform the essential in-person functions of his job even with a reasonable accommodation — his discrimination claim failed at the prima facie stage.

Retaliation

The court also affirmed dismissal of Hayes’s retaliation claim. To establish a prima facie case of ADA retaliation, a plaintiff must show: (1) he engaged in ADA-protected activity; (2) he suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) a causal connection exists between the two. Hayes argued that the temporal proximity between his accommodation request and his termination established causation.

The court disagreed for two reasons. First, three months elapsed between Hayes’s initial accommodation request and his termination — a gap the court found insufficient to establish the “very close” temporal proximity required to support an inference of causation. Second, and more fundamentally, because Hayes was unable to perform the essential functions of his job, his accommodation request was unavailing as a matter of law, and a failed request for an accommodation cannot serve as the basis for a viable retaliation claim.

Practical Takeaways

Hayes v. GStek offers several practical reminders for employers:

  • Pandemic telework does not create a permanent accommodation baseline. Employers who permitted employees to work remotely during COVID-19 did not thereby transform telework into an essential job accommodation. The temporary nature of pandemic-era arrangements should be documented clearly.
  • In-person attendance remains an essential function of most jobs. Courts continue to recognize regular worksite attendance as an essential function, and full-time telework is rarely a reasonable accommodation, particularly where the employer’s operational needs or contractual obligations require in-person presence.
  • An employer satisfies the ADA by providing a reasonable accommodation, not the employee’s preferred one. Where an employer makes a good-faith effort to provide a partial accommodation that does not require eliminating essential job functions, it has likely met its statutory obligation.
  • Contractors operating under client-controlled work conditions should document those constraints. GStek’s contractual relationship with the Army — including the Army’s express authority to set telework policies for contract employees — was significant to the court’s analysis. Employers in similar third-party-controlled environments should ensure those constraints are clearly documented.

A copy of the opinion in Hayes v. GStek, Inc. is available here.