Our Take
The ruling narrows what counts as unequal treatment: employers can't use paid-leave eligibility as cover for denying disability accommodations.
Why it matters
HR teams and school districts now have clearer ground rules on ADA leave requests. This affects how organizations structure accommodation policies and what they must document to defend denials.
Do this week
HR: Audit your ADA leave denials from the past 18 months to confirm none were rejected solely because paid leave wasn't available to nondisabled staff.
Appeals court upholds unpaid ADA leave for disability training
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit determined that a school district's refusal to grant paid sick leave for guide dog training was not discriminatory under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court found that unpaid leave, when offered as an accommodation, can satisfy the ADA's reasonable accommodation requirement.
The case centered on a teacher who requested time off to train a guide dog. The school district denied paid leave but offered unpaid leave instead. The teacher challenged the decision as unequal treatment. The court ruled against the teacher, finding no evidence that nondisabled employees received paid sick leave for absences that fell outside normal paid-leave policies (per HR Dive).
The court's logic was straightforward: the accommodation itself (time off) was granted. The form of compensation during that time (paid versus unpaid) did not trigger a separate discrimination claim, because the school district applied the same paid-leave rules to disabled and nondisabled workers alike.
The ruling sets a boundary on what "reasonable" means
This decision clarifies that employers can satisfy ADA obligations through unpaid leave, provided they do not selectively deny accommodations to disabled workers while granting paid leave exceptions to others. The distinction matters: organizations cannot simply point to paid-leave scarcity as a reason to refuse accommodation requests.
The ruling also establishes an evidentiary standard. To challenge an accommodation denial, the disabled worker must show that nondisabled employees received paid leave under comparable circumstances. Generic paid-leave policies that apply equally to all workers do not constitute discrimination, even if they result in unpaid status for an accommodation.
For school districts, municipal employers, and large organizations with formal leave structures, this reduces legal exposure when accommodation requests exceed paid-leave budgets. The court did not require employers to expand paid-leave pools or create new compensation categories to meet ADA duties.
Document leave denials with comparators in mind
When an employee requests ADA leave, do not default to paid-leave availability as a reason for denial. Instead, ask: have nondisabled employees been granted paid leave for absences of this type? If the answer is no, the denial is likely defensible. If yes, the denial exposes the organization to challenge.
Maintain clear records showing that paid-leave policies apply uniformly across the workforce. If you grant exceptions to paid-leave rules for nondisabled staff (remote work, compressed schedules, unpaid sabbaticals), document them separately from disability accommodations so that any future dispute can show whether equal treatment was applied.
The ruling does not eliminate the obligation to accommodate. It simply clarifies that the mode of payment (paid versus unpaid) is not a barrier to meeting that obligation, provided the accommodation itself is offered and the denial cannot be reframed as selective enforcement of leave rules.