One bright spot in the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic is broader acceptance of remote work. Although disabled people are still underemployed compared to the rest of the population, they are currently working at record levels—due directly to remote work allowing more of them to enter the labor force. But significantly more disabled workers need to work remotely and are unable to secure that accommodation. Eager to “return to normal” and do away with remote work, many employers are denying remote work requests, even from disabled workers who cannot otherwise do their jobs. Historically, employers have been able to deny remote work accommodation requests with near impunity from courts, which overwhelmingly sided with employers. Courts often did so based on faulty evidentiary practices, such as assuming that only exceedingly rarely could any job be done at home. But COVID laid that assumption bare.
Commentators and scholars speculate that COVID’s mass remote work experiment will surely change how courts assess claims based on denying remote work accommodation requests. But is that speculation accurate? This Article presents data to answer that question. It provides empirical analysis based on all 151 federal remote work accommodation cases from 2023 and 2024. In some small respects, courts have changed their ways, but far too many are still making the same mistakes in analyzing these claims—even with all COVID has taught us. Many courts, it seems, have not learned any lessons.
