A jury finds SHRM liable of failing to handle an accommodation request involving a service animal

Sponsored by

The cost of noncompliance. Onboarding oversights aren’t just administrative noise: A single compliance slipup carries an immediate penalty ranging from $288 to $2,861 per individual form. Equifax’s article breaks down what you need to know about redefined I-9 violations and higher penalty risks for employers. Learn more.

A Virginia jury this month unanimously found SHRM liable in a disability discrimination lawsuit involving a disability accommodation request. The jury’s verdict awarded $400,000 in compensatory damages to the plaintiff.

The civil lawsuit, Torres v. Society for Human Resource Management, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia last December, alleged SHRM discriminated against plaintiff Fiona Torres after she was offered a full-time position as a senior specialist in its product management department in 2024. In her complaint, she alleged SHRM violated both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Virginia Human Rights Act (VHRA) when it withdrew her offer and failed to accommodate her request to bring her medical alert dog to work to manage her type 1 diabetes.

According to court documents and trial testimony, Torres, after receiving a conditional offer from SHRM, notified the HR industry group of her accommodation request to bring her trained medical alert dog to work so he could detect sudden changes to her blood glucose levels which she sometimes experiences due to her type 1 diabetes.

SHRM denied Torres’s request, instead offering her a set of “alternative accommodations” it believed would address her needs and allow her to perform her work duties without her medical alert dog. In lieu of her “preferred accommodation,” SHRM execs told Torres, according to court documents, she could use her wearable medical device, known as a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), as well as keep her insulin machine at her desk; she’d be allowed food and drink at her workstation; allowed breaks to address her symptoms; and could use SHRM’s unlimited PTO policy.

“Ms. Torres had a job offer from SHRM, asked for an accommodation for her disability, and lost the offer. The jury heard the evidence and found in her favor, finding SHRM liable for disability discrimination and failure to accommodate under both the ADA and VHRA. We’re grateful to the jurors for their careful attention throughout the trial,” Torres’s attorney, Mary Kuntz, told HR Brew via email following the verdict.

The plaintiff accused SHRM of failing to “participate in good faith” as it handled her accommodation request. Torres’s lawyers, according to court transcripts, argued in court that SHRM CHRO Jim Link wasn’t interested in understanding Torres’s request and that SHRM’s “alternative accommodations” were not accommodations, but extensions of SHRM’s existing policy.

The organization admitted to not consulting any medical doctor when it received the request, instead meeting with employment attorneys and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, according to court documents.

“The law requires employers to look seriously at an employee’s actual needs when an accommodation is requested. That obligation applies to every employer, including the organization so many others rely on for guidance on these questions,” Kuntz said in the statement to HR Brew.

SHRM argued it had contended the ADA and VHRA don’t require employers to provide an employee or applicant’s “preferred accommodation” to comply with those measures.

“This outcome penalizes an organization for executing a rigorous, good-faith, multi-step interactive process—exactly the kind of process the ADA was designed to require.

Accommodation is meant to be a dialogue, not a dictation. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires cooperation from both sides. An applicant’s preference for one specific accommodation does not strip an employer of its right to establish reasonable operational boundaries or to propose alternative, effective solutions,” according to a press release SHRM’s director of media affairs, Eddie Burke, sent to HR Brew. “SHRM said no to one specific accommodation. We did not say no to Ms. Torres, her diagnosis, or her need for support.”

Context is key. Ashley Herd, an employment attorney who founded and runs the manager training program Manager Method and hosted the now-retired HR Besties podcast, followed SHRM’s lawsuit this year and spoke with HR Brew about lessons HR leaders can draw from the lawsuit. Herd is not involved in the Torres case.

“The jury form was very helpful. They [Torres] still won. They still won all of their claims, but there were certain questions that [the jury] answered ‘no’ to, and you can still do that,” Herd told HR Brew, adding that “there are things SHRM did right and the jury verdict form confirmed that to me.”

Herd pointed to testimony from SHRM CHRO Jim Link. The jury didn’t find SHRM pulled its offer because of Torres’s disability, but did so due to its inability to accommodate her request. Herd also pointed to the jury’s finding that SHRM engaged in a timely, good faith, and interactive process, and she praised SHRM for the documentation of the process.

“But having those written communications back and forth made it helpful,” she said. “Ultimately, that communication wasn’t that helpful to SHRM because of the jury’s verdict, but having…that one long email chain back and forth, shows written examples of what the interactive process can be like, but at the same time, gives us lessons on how it could have been better.”

Herd suggested SHRM reasonably engaged respectfully in the process, and early in the process. She also pointed to the collapsed chain of command as a respectful move to Torres, shielding her from repeating her experience and story to multiple SHRM personnel.

“Streamline that as much as possible. That is really important when it comes to things like disclosing medical information—not just who knows about it, but also what it feels like on the candidate or employee side to tell that story. And that’s true whether it’s asking for an accommodation or in investigations,” she said.

But ultimately a number of missteps hurt SHRM in court.

“SHRM just kept hammering this was her preferred accommodation. This was a preference, but what the plaintiff was saying—and it wasn’t just her lawyer saying this at trial, this is her saying it in her communications to SHRM as part of the interactive process—that this isn’t just my preference,” Herd said. “She did communicate about why this was more than a preference. This was a need, and so, to me, it was this back and forth of need versus preference, and SHRM saw it as a preference.”

Herd recommended HR and TA pros fielding accommodation requests approach the process with curiosity instead of with suspicion.

“She was explaining these [exceptions]...in a lot of detail,” Herd said, adding that “it seemed” like SHRM execs saw these exemptions “as contradictions when she was trying to provide context”.

People executives and employment attorneys aren’t medical professionals, and in deliberations these kinds of medical decisions are “like playing doctor,” according to Herd.

“That’s a big lesson from HR,” she said. “Whatever your lane is, if you’re not a doctor, playing doctor or involving…multiple people, but never medical professionals, when you’re making medical decisions about whether something’s actually needed, is super risky.”

Herd recommended that HR pros identify their policy and follow it, adding that policies should include instances where flexibility is needed; because “it’s important that policies reflect reality.”

Herd also suggested HR pros visit the Job Accommodations Network (JAN), a free service funded by the Department of Labor with resources and information on navigating accommodation requests.

“It’s very practical, and it’s for employers and employees alike,” she said. “You can pick up the phone and call and talk to real people about what to do.”

Déjà vu? The decision follows a discrimination lawsuit against SHRM that went to a jury trial last year. In December, a Colorado jury found SHRM liable of racial discrimination and retaliation and awarded a former employee, Rehab Mohamed, $1.5 million in compensatory damages and an additional $10 million in punitive damages. A jury there found SHRM retaliated against Mohamed following a racial discrimination complaint she raised with her skip-level supervisor before she was fired from her job. (SHRM is currently pursuing an appeal of the verdict.)