🔒CT court ruling backs employers in remote work legal battle, amid new wave of return-to-office mandates
Cindy Cieslak, a partner with Hartford-based employment law firm Rose Kallor, said employers should consider the importance of efficiency and retention when it comes to return-to-work policies. HBJ Photo | Steve Laschever
At Lincoln Financial, hybrid work has been the norm since the pandemic, with many employees splitting time between home and office.
Starting this month, the company — which has a large presence in downtown Hartford’s Metro Center office building — is tightening that policy: hybrid employees must now work three days a week in the office, up from two.
Unlike some companies using return-to-office mandates to trim staff, Lincoln says the change reflects its “ongoing commitment to an employee experience that promotes balance and flexibility.”
The move, a spokesperson added, is designed to “support our ability to best serve our customers, drive innovation and maintain our competitive industry edge.”
The insurance giant’s policy change coincides with a broader corporate shift away from pandemic-era remote work flexibility.
Data from location analytics firm Placer.ai’s Nationwide Office Building Index shows that employee office visits in July rose 10.7% from a year earlier, reaching their highest point since early 2020, though still 21.8% below July 2019 levels.
Meantime, according to research from national staffing firm Robert Half, 53% of companies now require employees to work in the office at least three days a week, up from 37% the year prior.
With office attendance climbing to its highest levels since the pandemic, Connecticut employers also have greater legal cover to enforce in-person policies. A recent Connecticut Appellate Court ruling reaffirmed companies’ authority to require workers back at their desks, underscoring how return-to-office mandates are becoming both more common and more enforceable.
The court ruled in July that employers don’t have to accommodate requests for full-time remote work, if those arrangements would eliminate essential job functions. The decision — in Castelino v. Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan — provides the first appellate-level guidance in Connecticut on post-pandemic remote work accommodation requests, legal experts said.
“The theme, throughout, is that the employer has no obligation to change the nature of the job, and especially attendance at the workplace, simply because an employee makes the request” for an accommodation, said Cindy Cieslak, a partner with Rose Kallor in Hartford who represents employers in employment issues.
Essential function
The case centered on Marita Castelino, an administrative assistant at Greenwich law firm Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, who requested to work exclusively from home in June 2020 after discovering COVID-19 testing was being conducted in her office building.
Castelino, who has diabetes and asthma, had been hired for a position described as “mostly remote” with expectations to come into the office “as needed.”
The law firm denied her accommodation request, explaining that her role required in-person tasks including maintaining physical files, scanning client documents and meeting with clients to obtain signatures and notarize real estate closing documents.
Castelino was terminated two months later for performance issues and filed a lawsuit claiming disability discrimination, failure to accommodate and retaliation.
The Appellate Court reversed a trial court decision in the law firm’s favor, ruling that working entirely remotely “was not a reasonable accommodation request, as a matter of law, because that accommodation would have eliminated an essential function of her job.”
The judges emphasized that employers deserve considerable deference in determining what functions are essential to specific roles.
Johanna Zelman
“Just because it was possible to work remotely at one point doesn’t mean it has to remain possible always,” said Johanna Zelman, managing partner of law firm FordHarrison’s Hartford office.
Castelino, in her own deposition, acknowledged that the position “wasn’t fully remote” and that certain tasks required an office presence.
Broad implications
As more employers implement return-to-office mandates, the decision provides a roadmap for navigating the intersection of disability law and workplace flexibility, legal experts said.
“This decision highlights the difference between a policy versus a request for an accommodation under Connecticut statute or the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Cieslak said. “It also highlights the distinction between an employee’s preference to work from home versus an employer’s obligation to grant a reasonable accommodation.”
Companies must still evaluate accommodation requests on a case-by-case basis and engage in an “interactive process” with employees who have disabilities.
Generally, an employer must approve an employee’s request for reasonable accommodation if the individual qualifies under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the accommodation does not pose an undue hardship on the business and the requested accommodation enables the employee to perform the essential functions of their job.
The ruling, experts said, underscores the importance of employers clearly documenting job requirements and essential functions in job descriptions and hiring communications.
“If the employer makes it clear that there are very specific duties that must be performed in person,” Zelman said, “when an employee then requests an accommodation to work remotely, an employer can say: ‘I’m sorry, it’s an essential function of your job to work in person.’”
Cieslak agreed, adding that employers should regularly update outdated job descriptions: “If you clearly delineate job duties and essential functions at the hiring stage, you’re going to be in a stronger position to defend yourself in litigation.”
The decision’s practical impact may be most significant for new hires and employees whose job duties have changed.
“If a person has been working 100% remotely for the last five years, and their employer says the essential functions of their job require them to come back to work, I think that would be a very tough argument to make,” Zelman said.
Return to office
The Castelino case reflects broad changes in how courts and employers are approaching remote work since the end of pandemic restrictions. During 2020 and 2021, many employers granted remote work requests liberally due to health concerns, even when those arrangements might not have been required under disability law.
“I think what you’re seeing in this decision is that it’s not automatically a reasonable accommodation to allow somebody to work from home,” Zelman said.
Both attorneys said employer interest in bringing workers back to the office is growing, with concerns over supervision, employee training and company culture fueling the push.
“I think there is this overall trend for employers to say, ‘You know what, it’s time that we’re back into work fully,’” Zelman said. “… There’s just more ability to oversee your workforce when they’re there.”
Recruitment considerations
The court decision also provides a framework for holding low-performing employees accountable, experts said.
“The unreasonable request for an accommodation cannot be a shield with respect to an unsatisfactory employee,” the court noted — a principle that may resonate with employers dealing with performance issues among remote workers.
For Cieslak, the decision serves as a reminder that disability law principles haven’t changed, even as workplace practices have evolved.
“A disability does not excuse poor performance,” she said. “Simply because an employee comes to you because they have a health condition doesn’t mean that you’re precluded from acting on poor performance.”
Often, when an employer notices a decline in an employee’s performance, the employee will raise a health concern.
In that case, Cieslak emphasized that employers should avoid taking immediate disciplinary action.
“That would be the time to engage in the interactive process and see if there is a reasonable accommodation that can allow the employee to perform the essential functions of their job,” Cieslak said. “And then the employer can evaluate, once the accommodation is in place, whether or not that employee is still underperforming.”
Even still, both attorneys said flexibility remains a critical recruiting tool.
“For younger workforces, it is becoming harder to get people to take jobs where there’s not at least some remote work being offered,” Zelman noted. “A lot of employers are saying that some remote work is needed in order to retain talent.”
Research shows that 64% of remote workers would be “extremely likely” to look for other opportunities if their employer stopped allowing remote or hybrid work, according to Gallup.
Research from Gartner also found that high-performing employees are 16% more likely to have low intent to stay if they face return-to-office mandates.
Cieslak noted that employers should consider the importance of efficiency and retention.
“Turnover is costly,” she said. “Sometimes the best solution is to find a way to keep a good employee with an accommodation that isn’t an undue hardship.”
With office attendance climbing to its highest levels since the pandemic, Connecticut employers also have greater legal cover to enforce in-person policies. A recent Connecticut Appellate Court ruling reaffirmed companies’ authority to require workers back at their desks, underscoring how return-to-office mandates are becoming both more common and more enforceable.
The court ruled in July that employers don’t have to accommodate requests for full-time remote work, if those arrangements would eliminate essential job functions. The decision — in Castelino v. Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan — provides the first appellate-level guidance in Connecticut on post-pandemic remote work accommodation requests, legal experts said.
“The theme, throughout, is that the employer has no obligation to change the nature of the job, and especially attendance at the workplace, simply because an employee makes the request” for an accommodation, said Cindy Cieslak, a partner with Rose Kallor in Hartford who represents employers in employment issues.
Companies must still evaluate accommodation requests on a case-by-case basis and engage in an “interactive process” with employees who have disabilities.
Generally, an employer must approve an employee’s request for reasonable accommodation if the individual qualifies under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the accommodation does not pose an undue hardship on the business and the requested accommodation enables the employee to perform the essential functions of their job.
The ruling, experts said, underscores the importance of employers clearly documenting job requirements and essential functions in job descriptions and hiring communications.
“If the employer makes it clear that there are very specific duties that must be performed in person,” Zelman said, “when an employee then requests an accommodation to work remotely, an employer can say: ‘I’m sorry, it’s an essential function of your job to work in person.’”
Cieslak agreed, adding that employers should regularly update outdated job descriptions: “If you clearly delineate job duties and essential functions at the hiring stage, you’re going to be in a stronger position to defend yourself in litigation.”
The decision’s practical impact may be most significant for new hires and employees whose job duties have changed.
“If a person has been working 100% remotely for the last five years, and their employer says the essential functions of their job require them to come back to work, I think that would be a very tough argument to make,” Zelman said.
