The EEOC announced on Sept. 30 that two Boston property management companies will pay $112,000 to settle a disability discrimination and retaliation lawsuit. The agency says the companies offered an administrative assistant job in September 2021 and revoked it a few weeks later when the applicant disclosed a breast cancer diagnosis. Her medical provider had confirmed she could do the job and would need a small amount of time off a few times a month for treatment.
The case reached a settlement late. According to the EEOC, a federal court denied the defendants’ summary judgment motion in August 2026 and found it undisputed that the applicant’s diagnosis was a disability under the ADA, with a jury trial set for November. The two-year consent decree requires annual ADA training for managerial and human resources employees, revised policies explaining accommodation rights, and regular reports to the EEOC on how accommodation requests are handled.
The hiring stage is where this one lives. The EEOC’s argument was that a modified schedule or unpaid treatment leave could have kept the offer in place, and that the company instead contacted other applicants soon after the disclosure. The sequence is the evidence: an offer, a medical disclosure, and a withdrawal a few weeks later. HR teams can check whether their applicant tracking system records the reason an offer was withdrawn, and who approved it.
The practical insight is that the decision trail needs an owner before the offer stage ends. The decree’s training requirement reaches managerial and HR employees, which suggests where the agency sees the decision being made. Disability suits now begin at the offer stage, and another recent EEOC suit over pulled offers points the same way. If a disclosure reaches a recruiter, the safest route is a documented handoff to whoever runs accommodations.
Source: EEOC
