If you were fired after asking for a reasonable accommodation, federal law was almost certainly on your side. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits covered employers from firing a qualified employee because of a disability, and it separately prohibits retaliation against anyone who requests an accommodation. Whether you have a viable claim depends on your employer’s size, whether your condition qualifies as a disability, and how tightly the termination followed your request.
Why the Firing Is Illegal
The ADA gives you two overlapping legal theories, and understanding both matters because they can succeed independently.
The first is straightforward disability discrimination. The law prohibits covered employers from firing a qualified employee on the basis of disability, and that includes firing someone because of the need to provide an accommodation.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – 12112
The second is retaliation. A separate provision of the ADA prohibits discrimination against anyone who has opposed an unlawful practice or participated in a proceeding under the law.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – 12203 Requesting an accommodation is protected activity. Filing a complaint is protected activity. Cooperating with a coworker’s discrimination investigation is protected activity. Your employer cannot punish you for any of these.
The retaliation claim sometimes survives even when the underlying accommodation claim does not. If a court finds you were not technically entitled to the specific accommodation you asked for, your employer still cannot legally fire you for asking. The act of requesting is protected regardless of the outcome.
Does the ADA Cover Your Employer
The ADA’s employment protections apply to employers with 15 or more employees for each working day in at least 20 calendar weeks during the current or preceding year.3GovInfo. United States Code Title 42 – 12111 Below that threshold, the federal ADA does not reach your situation.
That does not mean you are without protection. Many states have their own disability discrimination laws with lower thresholds. Some states cover employers with as few as one employee, and coverage across states generally falls somewhere between 1 and 15. State filing deadlines vary as well, typically running one to three years. If your former employer is small, check your state’s civil rights agency to see whether state law fills the gap the federal ADA leaves.
Do You Have a Qualifying Disability
The ADA defines “disability” as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity. That covers obvious functions like walking, seeing, hearing, and breathing, and it also covers less visible ones like concentrating, thinking, sleeping, and the operation of bodily systems such as your immune, digestive, neurological, or endocrine functions.4U.S. Department of Labor. ADA Amendments Act of 2008 Frequently Asked Questions The condition does not need to be permanent. Episodic impairments qualify if they are substantially limiting when active.
What You Have to Prove
To pursue a wrongful termination claim under the ADA, you need to establish four things:
- You have a qualifying disability as defined by the ADA.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The ADA: Your Responsibilities as an Employer
- Your employer knew about it. The accommodation request itself normally satisfies this element, because the request puts the employer on notice.
- You were qualified for the job, meaning you could perform its essential functions with or without the accommodation you requested.
- There is a connection between the request and the termination. This is where most cases are won or lost.
Timing as Evidence
Close timing between an accommodation request and a firing is one of the strongest pieces of evidence available. Courts call this “temporal proximity.” There is no fixed rule about how many days or weeks is enough, but getting fired within days or a few weeks of the request creates a powerful inference that the two events are linked. The longer the gap, the harder it becomes to rely on timing alone.
Spotting a Pretextual Reason
Employers rarely admit that a firing was tied to an accommodation request. Instead, they offer a seemingly legitimate reason: poor performance, a policy violation, a restructuring. Your task is to show that the stated reason is pretext, a cover story for the real motivation.
Signs of pretext include a story that shifts between the HR meeting and the legal filing, a policy applied to you but routinely ignored for others, a sudden negative performance review that contradicts years of positive evaluations, or an investigation into your conduct that was noticeably more aggressive than similar inquiries into coworkers. None of these alone is decisive. Stacked together, they paint a picture courts take seriously.
Preserve Your Evidence Now
The days right after a termination are when most people lose evidence they will later wish they had kept. If you believe your firing was connected to your accommodation request, act quickly.
- Save every relevant communication. Emails, text messages, Slack threads, voicemails, and written memos about your accommodation request, your disability, and the termination. Forward personal copies to an account your former employer cannot access before you lose system access.
- Write a detailed timeline. Document when you made the request, who you spoke with, what they said, changes in how you were treated afterward, and the circumstances of the firing. Do it while details are fresh.
- Identify witnesses. Note names and contact information for coworkers who observed relevant conversations, heard discriminatory remarks, or saw your treatment change after the request.
- Request your personnel file. Many states give you the right to obtain a copy. Performance reviews, disciplinary records, and internal notes can either support or undermine your employer’s stated justification.
- Keep copies of earlier performance reviews. A pattern of positive reviews followed by a sudden negative one right after your accommodation request is exactly the kind of contrast that shows pretext.
Filing a Charge With the EEOC
Before you can file a federal lawsuit under the ADA, you must first file a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing A Charge of Discrimination This step is legally required. You cannot skip it.
Deadlines You Cannot Miss
You generally have 180 calendar days from the date of the discriminatory act to file your charge. That extends to 300 days if a state or local agency enforces a law covering the same type of discrimination.7U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Because most states have their own disability discrimination laws, many people qualify for the longer 300-day window. Do not assume you have 300 days without confirming. If your state does not have a qualifying law, you are stuck with 180, and missing the deadline typically kills your claim entirely.
You can start the process through the EEOC’s online Public Portal, by phone, by mail, or in person at an EEOC office. The EEOC will notify your former employer within 10 days of your filing and may then investigate by interviewing you, your employer, and witnesses, and by reviewing company records.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Can Expect After You File a Charge Early in the process the agency may offer mediation, which is voluntary, free, and generally resolves in under three months when both sides agree.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mediation
The Notice of Right to Sue
At the end of its investigation, the EEOC issues a Notice of Right to Sue. This document is your ticket to federal court. Once you receive it, you have exactly 90 days to file a lawsuit. Courts enforce that deadline strictly, and missing it almost always ends the case.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
You do not have to wait for the EEOC to finish its investigation. If more than 180 days have passed since you filed your charge, you can request the Notice of Right to Sue and the EEOC is required by law to provide it. If fewer than 180 days have passed, the agency will grant the request only if it determines it cannot complete the investigation within that window. Requests can be submitted through your EEOC Public Portal account or mailed to the office handling your charge with your charge number and the names of the parties.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
What You Can Recover
A successful claim can produce several types of compensation designed to put you back in the financial position you would have been in without the illegal firing:
- Back pay: the wages and benefits you lost between the termination and the resolution of the case.
- Reinstatement: getting your old job back. When that is not practical, a court may award front pay for future lost earnings instead.
- Compensatory damages: reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs caused by the discrimination, plus compensation for emotional distress.
- Punitive damages: available when the employer’s conduct was especially reckless or malicious.
- Attorney’s fees and costs: a prevailing plaintiff can recover the cost of legal representation.
Federal Damages Are Capped
Federal law caps the combined amount of compensatory and punitive damages you can recover, and the cap depends on your employer’s size. Back pay and attorney’s fees are not subject to the caps. Emotional distress and punitive damages are. The limits:11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 42 – 1981a
- 15 to 100 employees: $50,000
- 101 to 200 employees: $100,000
- 201 to 500 employees: $200,000
- More than 500 employees: $300,000
These caps apply to federal ADA claims only. State disability discrimination laws may have higher caps, no caps at all, or different rules entirely. If your former employer is large and the potential damages are significant, filing under state law alongside or instead of the federal claim can lead to a better outcome. It is one of the most consequential strategic decisions in any wrongful termination case, and worth professional advice before committing to a path.