Failure to ID Similar Colleague who Kept Job Deletes Strategic Coordinator's ADA Claim

Montgomery, AL (WorkersCompensation.com) – It may be “just business,” and nothing personal, when a company replaces an employee with a disability with a software program, but the decision still may trigger an ADA claim.  

However, as the court explained in  Akridge v. Alpha Mutual Insurance Company, No. 2:17-cv-372-JTA (M.D. Ala. 05/12/22), an employee’s attempt to establish that her termination was discriminatory generally can’t proceed unless she points to a coworker in a similar job who kept her position. 

In the Akridge case, a long-time strategic coordinator for an insurance company’s automobile underwriting division was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and suffered from migraines. Her supervisors were aware of her conditions. 

Part of the coordinator’s job involved gathering and distributing strategic underwriting information. But the company developed software that could perform the same functions and, in 2016, it decided the coordinator’s job was superfluous. It terminated her that same year. 

The coordinator sued the district for disability discrimination under the ADA, claiming the company fired her because it didn’t want to accommodate her disability and pay her medical costly bills. 

To support her claim, the employee, in her attempt to establish discrimination by indirect evidence, pointed to a colleague who allegedly worked in underwriting for the company’s home insurance operations who retained her position. The coordinator asserted that her colleague, like herself, conducted loss-reduction workshops for agents and worked on manuals. 

To establish a viable ADA claim, the court observed, the coordinator had to show that her disability was a but-for cause of discrimination. To do that, she had to identify an employee who was similarly situated to her – someone who performed the same basic job functions -- but was treated more favorably than she. 

The court held that the coordinator failed to identify a proper comparator. It acknowledged that both the coordinator and her colleague may have performed risk workshops and worked with manuals and insurance filings.  

However, the court rejected the coordinator’s argument that the two workers’ jobs were essentially interchangeable. There were major differences, the court explained: the coworker did not work in underwriting, her duties could not be automated, and, unlike the coordinator, she worked on various special projects. 

Further, while the coordinator pointed to other employees who worked in underwriting but were merely demoted, she failed to explain those employees’ duties. “[The coordinator] cannot base a comparator argument on these five persons when she cannot show that they were performing similar job functions,” the court wrote. 

The court added that even if the coordinator could establish that her multiple sclerosis was the reason she was terminated, she failed to overcome the company’s nondiscriminatory explanation for its action – that it no longer needed her because the software would perform the same job. The company was consistent in its explanation, the court noted, pointing out that all three managers testified that the company terminated her job when, because of the software program, it realized employees could go online to access the reports that the coordinator previously produced and disseminated. As one manager testified, “It was just a business decision.” 

Because the employee failed to identify a comparator who was treated more favorably, she fell short of establishing a viable ADA case, the court held.  

Thus, the court granted the company summary judgment on the coordinator’s claim.