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As tensions around return-to-office mandates continue, some employees are filing lawsuits against their employers for their policies.
In a lawsuit filed in state court in California last month, originally obtained by The Independent, a former Tesla executive claims his life was upended after the company required him to come into its corporate offices in Fremont, Calif., roughly 400 miles from where he lived in Irvine. The plaintiff, Mike Tully, alleges that the company enticed him to leave his long-time job at Bank of America and join the electric car company “after being promised and assured that the position would be remote, and he would not be required to relocate,” the lawsuit claims.
Then in 2022, Tesla instituted a policy that required all employees to work a minimum 40-hours per week in an office. At the time, Tully was only two months into the new job and claims he was told by the company that his “position was no longer permitted to be remote,” and that he’d have to return to Tesla’s offices in either Fremont or Texas. If he didn’t comply, he would be fired, the lawsuit says. He felt “completely blindsided.”
To make matters worse Tully was suffering from “a chronic medical condition that was being exacerbated by the stress he was experiencing” related to the job and his inability to work remotely. He claims that he informed the company’s HR department about his condition, but that he was fired anyway.
“Tesla is not liable to Plaintiff for punitive damages because neither Tesla nor any of its officers, directors, or managing agents committed any alleged oppressive, fraudulent, or malicious acts,” Tesla wrote in an answer to the complaint. Emails to Tesla's in-house counsel and press contact were not returned. The plaintiff’s legal council also did not respond. On Wednesday last week, the lawsuit moved to federal court.
This isn’t the only lawsuit employees have filed lately due to return-to-office policies. In 2023, an Ohio-based nonprofit United Labor Agency was forced to pay $32,371 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) after an employee undergoing cancer treatment felt forced to resign due to the company’s return-to-office policy. Then last year, a tire and auto service shop company based in Arizona, Bell Road Tire and Auto, was forced to pay $64,500 to settle another disability lawsuit with the EEOC for failing to accommodate a disabled worker after instituting a similar mandate. All said, as more companies roll out strict return-to-office policies, disability discrimination suits may continue to pop up.
“This resolution sends a clear message about the importance of ADA compliance,” Melinda Caraballo, district director of the EEOC Phoenix District Office said in response to the Bell Road Tire and Auto case.
Brit Morse
brit.morse@fortune.com
