A Brooklyn jury awarded $3.1 million to two dispatchers after National Grid denied continued telework despite medical conditions. During the pandemic, dispatchers performed emergency routing from home using company systems and met performance expectations. After offices reopened, requests to keep teleworking were refused even though duties, tools, and outcomes remained the same. The reasoning focused on results rather than slogans, treating later insistence on in-person presence as preference when remote work had already proven effective. Similar outcomes occurred elsewhere, including a Charlotte award tied to mishandled work-from-home accommodation and an EEOC consent decree involving refusal of part-time telework for a high-risk worker. These outcomes relied on records showing work completion and lack of substantiated hardship claims.
"Picture a control room that never sleeps, its dispatchers routing gas emergency crews from kitchen tables and spare bedrooms while the city hums outside. Then picture those same dispatchers being told to report to work in person despite having the same duties, the same tools, and the same results."
"Recently, a Brooklyn jury delivered a $3.1 million award against National Grid for denying continued telework to two dispatchers suffering from medical conditions. During the pandemic, dispatchers did the job from home with company systems and met the mark. After offices reopened, workers with documented disabilities asked to keep teleworking and were refused."
"Jurors evaluate results, not slogans. If emergency routing worked from home using the same people, the same laptops, and the same workflows, a later insistence on presence reads like preference rather than necessity. The signal to leaders is direct: When a case built on hard performance evidence reaches a jury, remote-work flexibility wins."
"These matters do not turn on novel legal theories. They turn on records showing that the work got done and that companies' claims of hardship due to having remote workers lacked substantiating evidence. For executives, that becomes an operational test. If teams prove the job can be done successfully from home, management must offer task-level reasons for changing course, supported with quality metrics, response times, safety da"
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