Not always. The Appeals Court held that a state hospital did not have to move a nurse into a job with no patient care after she became unable to restrain patients, and that her retaliation claim failed because years passed between her complaints and her firing. This is an unpublished Appeals Court decision under Rule 23.0, which courts may cite as persuasive but not as binding precedent.
What happened
The employee worked as a registered nurse for the Department of Mental Health, giving direct care to adult patients in locked psychiatric units. Years earlier, at another hospital, she had filed an internal sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor whose wife later became her director of nursing. In 2014 she complained that the director had created a hostile work environment. In January 2015 she was hurt at work while restraining a patient, and doctors said she should not restrain patients. The employer offered a modified return to work with no restraint duties, but she turned it down because she believed she would still have to restrain patients if an emergency arose. She asked instead for an administrative job with no direct patient care. After her leave ran out, the employer held a hearing and fired her in December 2017 because she could not perform the essential functions of the job.
What the court decided
The Appeals Court affirmed summary judgment for the employer and the director. See Kiely v. Department of Mental Health, No. 25-P-296 (Mass. App. Ct. July 23, 2026) (Rule 23.0 decision).
Disability discrimination. Under G.L. c. 151B, § 4(16), an employer may not fire a qualified person with a disability who can do the essential functions of the job with a reasonable accommodation. G.L. c. 151B, § 1(16) defines a qualified person as one who can perform those essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation. The court held that being able to restrain a patient was an essential function of this nursing job. The written job description made the nurse responsible for patient safety, nursing care on the unit, and handling emergencies. She admitted that patients on the locked units were volatile and that restraint might be needed every day on some units. Relying on Cox v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 414 Mass. 375 (1993), the court said a duty can be essential even if it comes up only some of the time.
The court also held that the administrative job she wanted was not a reasonable accommodation. It was a fundamentally different position, and the employer was not required to provide it. See Tompson v. Department of Mental Health, 76 Mass. App. Ct. 586 (2010). She also had no evidence that nursing jobs without restraint duties actually existed. Under Cox, an employee must make at least a basic showing that an accommodation is possible.
Retaliation. To prove retaliation, an employee must show protected activity, an adverse action, and a causal link between them. See Mole v. University of Mass., 442 Mass. 582 (2004). Her complaints were protected activity and her firing was an adverse action. But she was fired about three years after her complaint about the director. The court held that gap was too long, without more, to support an inference that the firing was retaliation. See also Dube v. Middlesex Corp., 59 Mass. App. Ct. 734 (2003). The same lack of causation defeated her claim that she was fired for seeking workers’ compensation.
Finally, the workers’ compensation anti-retaliation law, G.L. c. 152, § 75B(2), applies to employers and their authorized agents. The director was a fellow employee, not the employer or its authorized agent, so she could not be liable under that statute.
What this means for you
The right to a reasonable accommodation is real, but it has limits. An employer may have to change how you do your job, adjust your schedule, or remove minor tasks. It does not have to remove an essential duty of your job, and a request to move into a fundamentally different position may not count as a reasonable accommodation, especially with no evidence that such a job exists.
Be careful about turning down an accommodation your employer offers. Here, the employer offered a modified return to work, and the employee declined it.
Timing matters in retaliation cases. A firing that comes soon after a complaint can suggest retaliation. When years pass, you need other evidence that ties the two together, such as a pattern of mistreatment that began right after the complaint.
What to do now
- Get a copy of your written job description and note which duties are central and which are occasional.
- Make your accommodation request in writing and say what you can do, not only what you cannot.
- If your employer offers an accommodation, respond in writing and explain any concerns before you refuse it.
- Keep a dated record of every complaint you make and every negative action that follows.
- Watch your deadline: a discrimination charge with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination generally must be filed within 300 days of the act, under G.L. c. 151B, § 5.
If this is your situation, call Doubleday Law at (617) 575-2006 or tell us what happened. Deadlines for discrimination and employment claims can be short.
