“Concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with.” Stephen Hawking
Introduction: The Work Is There. Getting There Is the Problem.
Stephen Hawking understood something that the American legal system is still, imperfectly, learning to grasp. A person with a disability can be brilliant, indispensable, irreplaceable, capable of doing the work with extraordinary skill, and still face a workplace that was designed without them in mind. Hawking did not let the fact that he could not write on a chalkboard stop him from revolutionizing cosmology. He adapted. He used technology. He worked differently than his colleagues, and the world is immeasurably better for it.
For millions of Americans with disabilities, the central challenge of professional life is not the job itself. It is everything surrounding the job, the commute, the fluorescent lighting, the open-plan office, the twelve-hour days on a hard chair, the exposure to pathogens in a crowded elevator. Their disability does not prevent them from doing the work. It prevents them from doing the work the way everyone else does it. And in 2026, with the technology to support remote work more capable and accessible than at any point in human history, the law’s answer to that challenge matters enormously.
This article examines the current legal framework governing work from home, also called telework, as a reasonable accommodation for disabled employees under two critically important statutes: the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and Connecticut’s Fair Employment Practices Act (“CFEPA”). We examine the governing statutes, the EEOC’s February 2026 guidance, key court decisions including a landmark Connecticut Appellate Court ruling, and what all of this means in practical terms for Connecticut and New York employees and employers navigating return-to-office mandates and disability accommodation obligations in a complicated legal landscape.
I. The Legal Framework: ADA and CFEPA at a Glance
A. The Americans with Disabilities Act
The ADA, enacted in 1990 and significantly strengthened by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (“ADAAA”), prohibits covered employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities. Title I of the Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101–12117, applies to employers with fifteen (15) or more employees. It defines discrimination to include “not making reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability.”1
A “reasonable accommodation” is defined broadly as any modification or adjustment to the work environment, or to the manner or circumstances under which a position is customarily performed, that enables a qualified individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of that position. This definition is codified in the ADA regulations at 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(1)(ii). Critically, working from home — i.e., changing the location where work is performed — has long been recognized by the EEOC as a potential form of reasonable accommodation within the meaning of that regulation.2
The ADA’s protections extend to individuals who have a “disability,” defined in 42 U.S.C. § 12102 as (1) a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, (2) a record of such an impairment, or (3) being regarded as having such an impairment. The ADAAA’s amendments in 2008 substantially broadened this definition, explicitly directing that the term “substantially limits” be construed broadly in favor of coverage.3
B. The Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act
Connecticut employees enjoy protections that, in key respects, exceed the ADA’s floor. The CFEPA, codified at Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-60 et seq., prohibits employment discrimination based on disability — defined as “physical disability, including, but not limited to, blindness” and “mental disability” — and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities unless doing so would cause an undue hardship.4
There are several important distinctions between the ADA and CFEPA that every Connecticut employee should know. First, while the ADA applies only to employers with fifteen or more employees, CFEPA — as amended effective October 1, 2022 — now applies to employers with one or more employees, making it among the broadest anti-discrimination statutes in the nation by employer coverage.5
Second, CFEPA’s definition of “disability” may be broader than the ADA’s in some respects. The Connecticut Supreme Court confirmed in Curry v. Allan S. Goodman, Inc., 286 Conn. 390 (2008), that CFEPA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees, while also noting that the state definition does not require that a disability affect a “major life activity” in the same way the ADA does.6
Third, CFEPA is enforced by the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (“CHRO”), which also applies standards generally consistent with those under federal ADA law, as confirmed by Connecticut courts and the Commission’s own guidance. An employee who believes their accommodation request has been unlawfully denied may file a complaint with the CHRO within 300 days of the alleged discriminatory act, or may file a charge with the EEOC.
II. When Is Telework a Reasonable Accommodation? The Three-Prong Framework
Neither the ADA nor CFEPA creates an automatic right to work from home. The law is more nuanced than that — and anyone who tells you otherwise, in either direction, is oversimplifying. The EEOC has long maintained, and its February 2026 guidance reconfirms, that telework qualifies as a reasonable accommodation only when it enables one of three specific outcomes:
First, participation in the application process for qualified applicants with disabilities;
Second, performance of the essential functions of the job;
Third, access to the equal benefits and privileges of employment.
Critically, telework requested solely for personal benefit, general symptom mitigation, or quality of life improvement — without a demonstrable nexus to the employee’s ability to perform essential job functions — does not meet this standard. As the EEOC stated plainly in its February 2026 guidance: “[W]hat the law does not require . . . is accommodations that only mitigate symptoms without also enabling the performance of essential functions.”7
The human reality that this legal framework sometimes struggles to articulate is this: for many disabled employees, the disability does not impair the job. The disability impairs the act of getting to the job and staying there for eight or ten hours under conditions not designed for their bodies or minds. A skilled accountant with lupus can absolutely prepare a financial statement — from her home office, away from fluorescent lights and exposure to office-borne infections that could trigger a flare. A talented software engineer with multiple sclerosis can write code with extraordinary precision — from his home workstation, equipped with ergonomic tools his office would never provide, without the commute that leaves him exhausted before his workday begins. The law’s framework should be applied with this reality firmly in mind.
III. The Essential Functions Battlefield
The linchpin of every remote work accommodation dispute is the concept of “essential functions.” This is where most cases are won or lost, and where both employers and employees need to be most carefully prepared.
The ADA does not define “essential functions” in the statute itself, but the implementing regulations at 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n) define them as “the fundamental job duties of the employment position.” The regulations specify that a job function may be essential because the position exists to perform that function, because of the limited number of employees available to perform it, or because it is so specialized that the person is hired specifically for that expertise.8
Evidence of what constitutes an essential function includes: the employer’s written job description; the employer’s judgment about which functions are essential; the amount of time spent on the job performing the function; the consequences of not requiring the incumbent to perform the function; the terms of a collective bargaining agreement; and the work experience of current and former employees in the position.9
Here is the practical problem for employees: employers control the job description. An employer that wants to resist a remote work accommodation has an obvious interest in characterizing physical presence in the office as “essential.” Courts are not always skeptical enough of that characterization, particularly in the post-pandemic era when many employers have stiffened their return-to-office postures. The law requires an individualized assessment of each employee’s actual job duties — not a rubber stamp of whatever the job description says, and not a blanket policy applied uniformly across a workforce.
Two recent cases illustrate the outer edges of this analysis. In Rogers v. Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, No. 23-2143-JAR, 2024 WL 4512411, at 13 (D. Kan. Oct. 17, 2024) a federal district court in Kansas held that indefinite remote work was not a reasonable accommodation where the employer established that in-person office presence was an essential job function of the position. The court rejected the argument that the employer’s temporary, pandemic-era flexibility with remote work permanently redefined the essential functions of the job.10
In contrast, the Sixth Circuit’s decision in EEOC v. Ford Motor Co., 782 F.3d 753 (6th Cir. 2015), offered a cautionary tale for employers who assert physical presence as essential without genuine operational support for that position. The decisive factor in that case was that the employer was able to demonstrate that prior attempts at telework for employees in the plaintiff’s role had been unsuccessful, a concrete, evidence-based showing, not a policy preference dressed up as an operational necessity.11
The lesson for employees: document everything. If you have performed your essential job functions remotely, during the pandemic, on a snow day, during a family emergency, that history is evidence. Courts and the EEOC do look at it. The lesson for employers: the claim that in-person presence is “essential” must be grounded in genuine operational reality, not the mere preference of a manager who liked seeing everyone in the bullpen.
IV. The EEOC’s February 2026 Telework Guidance: What You Need to Know
On February 11, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) jointly issued a technical assistance document titled “Frequently Asked Questions from the Federal Sector about Telework Accommodations for Disabilities” (the “2026 FAQ”).12
A word of context: this guidance was formally directed at federal agencies implementing President Trump’s January 2025 executive order mandating that federal employees return to in-person work. It invokes the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which is the federal-sector analog to the ADA and applies the same substantive standards. Though formally addressed to federal employers, the 2026 FAQ applies established ADA standards and precedent, making it the most comprehensive and current summary of the EEOC’s position on telework accommodations for any employer, public or private.
Here are the most significant takeaways from the 2026 FAQ:
A. No Blanket Denials — Ever
Employers may not adopt a blanket policy of denying all remote work accommodation requests. Every request must be evaluated individually through the interactive process. As the EEOC indicated, a distinction must be made between cases where telework is the only effective reasonable accommodation . . . and cases where telework is just one of several effective options. When there are several reasonable and effective options, an agency may choose an accommodation other than telework.
The obverse is equally true and equally important: when telework is the only effective accommodation, it may be legally required. No amount of return-to-office enthusiasm changes that calculation.
B. The Employer May Choose Among Effective Accommodations
The ADA requires employers to provide an effective accommodation — not necessarily the employee’s preferred one. This has been settled law for decades. Where multiple accommodations would effectively enable an employee to perform the essential functions of the job, the employer retains the discretion to choose among them. Modified workspace configurations, adjusted schedules, ergonomic equipment, assistive technology, or hybrid arrangements may all qualify as effective alternatives to full-time remote work. However, and this is critical, the proposed alternative must actually be effective. An employer cannot deny remote work and substitute a less effective alternative simply to avoid the inconvenience of a remote employee.
C. Pandemic Remote Work Does Not Automatically Redefine Essential Functions
Many employees who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic argue, understandably, that the pandemic demonstrated their job can be performed remotely, and that their employer’s post-pandemic insistence on in-person work is therefore unsupportable. The EEOC’s 2026 FAQ addressed this directly: temporary remote work implemented during emergency conditions does not necessarily alter a position’s essential functions. Employers retain the right to determine that in-person attendance is a genuine requirement of the role.14
That said, the pandemic precedent is not entirely irrelevant. Courts and the EEOC do consider whether remote work was successfully performed during the pandemic as evidence bearing on whether essential functions can be performed from home. An employer who cannot explain why a job that was performed perfectly well remotely for two years suddenly requires physical presence faces a meaningful credibility challenge.
D. Previously Granted Accommodations Are Not Permanent, But Reevaluation Must Be Individualized
The 2026 FAQ confirmed that employers may reevaluate previously granted remote work accommodations when job responsibilities change, operational needs evolve, or business conditions shift. Importantly, the EEOC strongly cautions agencies against revoking previously granted telework without first making an individualized determination in each case. 15
For employees, this means a remote work accommodation already in place has real legal weight. An employer who revokes it without genuine operational justification and without engaging in the interactive process, risks a viable discrimination claim.
E. Mental Health Conditions: A Material Barrier Standard
The 2026 FAQ addressed the growing category of remote work requests based on mental health conditions: anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, and others. The EEOC confirmed that the ADA does not create a general right to be free from all discomfort and distress in the workplace, including anxiety. The relevant question is whether the mental health condition imposes a material barrier to the employee’s ability to work in the office. As the FAQ stated, common anxiety, without more, is unlikely to impose a material barrier.16
However, where a mental health condition does impose a material barrier — where office conditions trigger debilitating symptoms that prevent effective work — the employer must consider remote work alongside other available accommodations. The law does not protect employees from all discomfort; it protects them from discrimination when their disability creates a genuine functional impairment that a reasonable accommodation could address.
F. Commuting Challenges: The Hardest Case
One of the most anguishing gaps in current accommodation law involves employees whose disability does not prevent them from working — but does prevent them from getting to work. Perhaps the most clear statement of current law on this point comes from the 2026 FAQ which holds that in most cases, an employer has no duty to help an employee with a disability with the methods and means of [their] commute to and from work, assuming the employer does not offer such help to employees without disabilities.
The law, as it stands, generally treats the commute as the employee’s problem. This is a harsh result for employees with mobility impairments that make driving impossible or dangerous, or for employees whose medical conditions make multi-hour commutes profoundly harmful, particularly when they are entirely capable of performing their work from home once they get there. Courts have been reluctant to require telework based on commuting hardship alone, and the EEOC’s 2026 guidance follows that established approach.
There are, however, exceptions. If an employee can show that their disability substantially limits a major life activity in a way that both complicates the commute and impairs in-office functioning, the analysis may shift. And the EEOC has acknowledged that in limited circumstances, such as when an employee needs temporary remote work while arranging transportation, accommodations addressing the commuting problem may be appropriate. Flexible scheduling as an alternative accommodation is also on the table.
V. A Landmark Connecticut Case: Castelino v. Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, LLC
Connecticut practitioners and Connecticut employees need to know about Castelino v. Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, LLC, which was decided by the Connecticut Appellate Court in 2025 and which stands as the most significant Connecticut state court ruling on remote work as an accommodation under CFEPA.17
The plaintiff in Castelino was hired in May 2020 as an administrative assistant in the real estate practice group of a Connecticut law firm. The timing of her hire was not incidental: many of the firm’s practice groups were operating remotely during the pandemic. The real estate practice group, however, continued to work from the office, because certain essential job duties could only be performed in person — maintaining physical files, scanning client documents, meeting with clients to obtain ink signatures, and notarizing documents.
The plaintiff requested full-time remote work as an accommodation for a disability. The law firm denied the request on the grounds that the accommodation would prevent her from performing the essential in-office functions of the real estate administrative role. The trial court granted summary judgment for the employer. The Appellate Court affirmed.
The Appellate Court’s ruling was clear: “[T]he plaintiff’s request to work exclusively on a remote basis would render her unable to perform certain essential job duties that could only be performed from the office.” Because the requested accommodation was unreasonable as a matter of law, all three of the plaintiff’s CFEPA claims — disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation — were dismissed.18
Castelino is a useful but not absolute precedent. The case turned on a specific set of facts: an administrative role with concrete, document-intensive in-person requirements in a legal setting where physical presence — for notarization, client contact, and physical file management — was genuinely necessary. The outcome would likely have been different for an employee whose essential functions were primarily computer-based, communication-based, or analytical in nature. The lesson of Castelino is not that remote work accommodations are unavailable in Connecticut. The lesson is that the essential functions analysis is fact-intensive, and employees whose work genuinely can be performed remotely have a much stronger claim than those whose roles require irreducible in-person components.
VI. The Interactive Process: Your Rights and Your Responsibilities
Whether you are an employee requesting a remote work accommodation or an employer evaluating one, the interactive process is not optional, it is legally required. Courts have consistently held that the failure to engage in the interactive process in good faith is itself evidence of an employer’s bad faith, even where the ultimate denial of the accommodation might have been lawful.
The interactive process works like this:
Step 1. The employee notifies the employer of a medical condition that requires some change in the way work is performed. The employee need not use the magic words “ADA” or “reasonable accommodation.” Any communication indicating a medical need for a workplace change triggers the process.
Step 2. The employer may request medical documentation establishing the nature of the disability, the functional limitations it imposes, and importantly, how remote work would address those limitations. Documentation must be relevant and proportionate; employers may not use documentation requests as a delay tactic.
Step 3. The employer and employee engage in a good-faith dialogue about available accommodations. This is the “interactive process”. If the employer proposes an alternative to remote work, the employee has the right to explain why that alternative will be ineffective. The employer must genuinely consider that explanation.
Step 4. The employer makes a decision, either granting the requested accommodation, offering an effective alternative, or denying the request (with explanation and, if required, documentation of undue hardship). The EEOC’s 2026 FAQ suggests that in some cases, employers may require an employee to attempt an in-office accommodation before concluding it is ineffective. If it proves ineffective in practice, the employer must then reconsider remote work.
For Connecticut employees, the CHRO complaint process provides an important alternative enforcement avenue. A charge must be filed within 300 days of the discriminatory act. The CHRO has authority to investigate, mediate, and adjudicate disability discrimination complaints, and its enforcement powers are concurrent with those of the EEOC.
VII. The Return-to-Office Wave and Disability Rights: A Collision Course
The context in which remote work accommodation requests are arising in 2026 cannot be ignored. A broad return-to-office movement accelerated by President Trump’s January 2025 executive order directing federal employees back to in-person work has swept across both the public and private sectors. Major employers are implementing strict return-to-office mandates, often with little flexibility and minimal individualized analysis.
For disabled employees, this wave is not a minor inconvenience. It is a direct threat to accommodations that may have been in place, effectively, for years. The EEOC’s 2026 FAQ was itself triggered by this dynamic: the Commission issued the guidance in direct response to concerns that federal employees with disabilities were being swept into blanket return-to-office mandates without the individualized analysis the law requires.19
Several legal principles constrain the return-to-office movement’s impact on disabled employees:
First: A blanket return-to-office policy is not a defense to an individual accommodation claim. An employer cannot simply say “everyone must be in the office” and consider its ADA obligations discharged. The ADA requires individualized assessment, period.
Second: Where remote work was granted as a disability accommodation, not merely as a general pandemic policy, the employer cannot revoke it without engaging in the interactive process, conducting an individualized assessment, and establishing that revocation is justified by changed circumstances.
Third: Return-to-office policies that disproportionately harm employees with certain disabilities, immunocompromising conditions, chronic fatigue, mobility impairments, severe mental health conditions, may create disparate impact liability if they are applied without accommodation analysis.
The collision between the return-to-office wave and disability rights law is going to generate significant litigation. Employees whose accommodations are being revoked or denied in the name of return-to-office policy should consult with employment counsel promptly.
VIII. Practical Guidance for Disabled Employees Seeking Remote Work Accommodations
If you are a Connecticut or New York employee with a disability who needs remote work as an accommodation, here is the straightforward guidance:
A. Request the Accommodation in Writing
Do not rely on verbal conversations. Put your request in writing, an email is sufficient, stating that you have a medical condition and need a change in your work arrangement. You do not need to diagnose yourself or use legal terminology. Keep a copy of everything.
B. Get Your Medical Provider Involved
The strength of your accommodation request will depend significantly on the quality of your medical documentation. Work with your treating physician or specialist to obtain documentation that specifically addresses: (1) your diagnosis; (2) how your condition functionally limits your ability to work in the office; and (3) how remote work would address those limitations and enable you to perform your job functions. Generic letters that say only “my patient cannot work in the office” are often insufficient. Specificity matters.
C. Know Your Essential Functions
Before you request an accommodation, think carefully about which of your job’s functions genuinely require in-office presence and which do not. If you can perform ninety percent of your duties remotely, make that case explicitly. If there are two or three functions that nominally require in-person presence, think about whether those functions are truly “essential” or merely customary, and whether there are technological or scheduling solutions that could address them on a hybrid basis.
D. Document the Pandemic Precedent
If you performed your job from home during COVID and the work was done effectively, gather that evidence. Performance reviews from remote work periods, communications from supervisors expressing satisfaction with your work, and any metrics measuring your output during remote periods are all potentially relevant.
E. Engage the Process and Respond to Alternatives
If your employer proposes an alternative accommodation rather than full-time remote work, engage with it seriously and document your response specifically. If the alternative will not work for your disability, explain precisely why, with medical support if possible. Courts and the EEOC look unfavorably on employees who refuse alternatives without explanation.
F. Know Your Deadlines
If your employer denies your accommodation request and you believe the denial was unlawful, you must act promptly. An EEOC charge must be filed within 300 days of the discriminatory act. A CHRO complaint in Connecticut must also be filed within 300 days. A New York State Division of Human Rights complaint must be filed within one year. A New York City Commission on Human Rights complaint must be filed within three years. These are not flexible deadlines.
IX. What Employers Should Be Doing Right Now
The legal obligations under both the ADA and CFEPA are clear. Here is where employers in Connecticut and New York need to focus their attention in 2026:
Review every existing remote work accommodation and confirm it was properly processed through the interactive process. If accommodations were granted informally, as many were during the pandemic, establish a formal record now.
Before implementing any return-to-office mandate, conduct an individualized assessment of each employee with an existing remote work accommodation. The EEOC could not be clearer: blanket revocations are legally indefensible.
Train HR personnel and managers on the interactive process, the essential functions analysis, and the requirement to consider alternatives to the employee’s preferred accommodation. The interactive process failure is among the most frequently litigated accommodation issues.
Update job descriptions to accurately reflect actual essential functions, including any genuine in-person requirements. Boilerplate job descriptions that predate remote work norms, or that fail to distinguish essential from marginal functions, create legal exposure in both directions.
When in doubt, consult with employment counsel before denying an accommodation request. The cost of a consultation is a small fraction of the cost of an ADA or CFEPA lawsuit, a CHRO investigation, or an EEOC charge.
Conclusion: The Distance Between the Office and the Work
Stephen Hawking could not walk, could not write, could barely speak without technological assistance. What he could do: think, model, theorize, discover; he did with a precision and depth that changed our understanding of the universe. The distance between him and the chalkboard was not the distance between him and the work.
For many disabled employees in 2026, the situation is analogous. The distance between home and the office is not the distance between them and their jobs. They can do the work. They can do it well. They can do it in ways that might surprise their employers if given the chance. The law recognizes this imperfectly, inconsistently, and with too many carve-outs for employer convenience but it recognizes it. The ADA and CFEPA both require employers to at least ask: can this person do the essential functions of the job if we change where they do it?
The answer, more often than employers’ return-to-office mandates acknowledge, is yes.
If you are a disabled employee who has been denied remote work as an accommodation, or whose existing accommodation is under threat, you have rights, and the time to assert them is now. Contact Carey & Associates, P.C. to discuss your situation with an experienced Connecticut and New York employment attorney.
Contact Carey & Associates, P.C. today to schedule a consultation. We represent employees and applicants throughout Connecticut, New York, and around the nation in disability discrimination and reasonable accommodation matters. Contact us at info@capclaw.com or call (203) 255-4150.
Endnotes
1. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). See also ADA Amendments Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-325, 122 Stat. 3553 (2008), codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101–12213.
2. EEOC, “Work at Home/Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation,” available at https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/work-hometelework-reasonable-accommodation; 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(o)(1)(ii).
3. 42 U.S.C. § 12102; ADA Amendments Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-325, § 4 (directing that the term “substantially limits” be construed broadly in favor of coverage).
4. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-60(a)(1); see also Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-51 (defining “physical disability” and “mental disability” under CFEPA). The full text of CFEPA is available at https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_814c.htm.
5. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-51(10) (defining “employer” as “any person or employer with one or more persons in such person’s or employer’s employ,” as amended effective October 1, 2022). See also Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, https://portal.ct.gov/chro.
6. Curry v. Allan S. Goodman, Inc., 286 Conn. 390 (2008) (holding that CFEPA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees and noting that the state definition of disability does not require impairment of a major life activity in the same manner as the ADA). See also Schaffer Law, “Disabled Employees Eligible for Reasonable Accommodation Under Connecticut Law,” available at https://www.schaffer-law.com/disabled-employees-eligible-for-reasonable-accommodation-under-connecticut-law.
7. EEOC and OPM, “Frequently Asked Questions from the Federal Sector about Telework Accommodations for Disabilities” (Feb. 11, 2026) (“2026 FAQ”), available at https://www.eeoc.gov/FAQ-federal-sector-telework-accommodations-disabilities; see also Ogletree Deakins, “Reasonable Accommodation Lessons From the EEOC’s New Telework Guidance,” (Feb. 16, 2026), available at https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/reasonable-accommodation-lessons-from-the-eeocs-new-telework-guidance/.
8. 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n)(1)-(3); EEOC, “Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA,” available at https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-reasonable-accommodation-and-undue-hardship-under-ada. See also 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8) (“qualified individual” defined as one who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position).
9. 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(n)(3)(i)-(vii) (listing factors to be considered in determining whether a job function is essential, including written job descriptions, the employer’s judgment, time spent on the function, and consequences of not requiring performance of the function). See also New York State Bar Association, “Working Remotely: Reasonable Accommodation or Mere Convenience?” available at https://nysba.org/working-remotely-reasonable-accommodation-or-mere-convenience/.
10. Rogers v. Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, No. 23-2143-JAR, 2024 WL 4512411, at 13 (D. Kan. Oct. 17, 2024).
11. EEOC v. Ford Motor Co., 782 F.3d 753 (6th Cir. 2015) (en banc) (holding that in-person attendance could constitute an essential job function where the employer demonstrated that prior telework arrangements had been unsuccessful, and that face-to-face interaction was critical to the position). See also New York State Bar Association, supra note 9.
12. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7; see also OPM, “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Telework Accommodations for Disabilities in the Federal Government,” CPM 2026-03 (Feb. 12, 2026), available at https://www.opm.gov/chcoc/latest-memos/frequently-asked-questions-faqs-on-telework-accommodations-for-disabilities-in-the-federal-government.pdf. The guidance was issued in response to President Trump’s Presidential Memorandum, “Return to In-Person Work” (Jan. 20, 2025).
13. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7 (emphasis added); see also Brenna McLaughlin et al., “Key Employer Takeaways from Recent Federal Guidance on Remote Work Policies,” Ballard Spahr (Feb. 26, 2026), available at https://www.ballardspahr.com; Jackson Lewis, “EEOC’s Recent FAQs for Federal Sector Agencies Regarding Remote Work for Disabled Employees,” available at https://www.jacksonlewis.com/insights/eeocs-recent-faqs-federal-sector-agencies-regarding-remote-work-disabled-employees-how-do-these-faqs-impact-private-employers.
14. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7; KJK, “EEOC Guidance on Telework and the ADA: What Employers Should Know as Return-to-Office Policies Continue to Evolve,” (Mar. 10, 2026), available at https://kjk.com/2026/03/10/eeoc-guidance-on-telework-and-the-ada-what-employers-should-know-as-return-to-office-policies-continue-to-evolve/.
15. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7 (“We strongly caution agencies against revoking previously granted telework without first making an individualized determination in each case.”). See also Littler Mendelson, “Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation After the EEOC’s New Guidance,” available at https://www.littler.com/news-analysis/asap/telework-reasonable-accommodation-after-eeocs-new-guidance-what-actually-changes.
16. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7 (quoting the EEOC’s position that the ADA “does not create a general right to be free from all discomfort and distress in the workplace, including anxiety” and that “common anxiety, without more, is unlikely to impose a material barrier”). See also Ogletree Deakins, supra note 7.
17. 2026 FAQ, supra note 7; see also EEOC, “Work at Home/Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation,” supra note 2 (addressing commuting issues and noting that in most cases employers have no duty to help employees with commuting difficulties). Remotelaws.com, “EEOC Compliance Remote Work: Federal Law Guide,” available at https://remotelaws.com/hr-compliance/employee-rights-remote-work/eeoc-compliance-remote-work/.
18. Castelino v. Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, LLC, 233 Conn. App. 264 (2024) (affirming summary judgment for employer on CFEPA disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation claims where full-time remote work would have eliminated essential in-office functions).
19. Castelino, supra note 18 (quoting Appellate Court’s holding that “working entirely remotely was not a reasonable” accommodation under CFEPA where essential job duties required in-office presence). See also Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-60(b)(1) (prohibiting disability discrimination in employment under CFEPA); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46a-60(b)(4) (prohibiting retaliation).
20. Presidential Memorandum, “Return to In-Person Work” (Jan. 20, 2025); 2026 FAQ, supra note 7 (issued in direct response to the return-to-office directive).