Hileman v. West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc. (3d Cir., No. 25-1459, decided July 20, 2026)

Facts: Cheryl Hileman worked the midnight shift doing CAT scans at Forbes Hospital. After being reprimanded for excessive absences (with instructions on how to request an accommodation or leave, which she never used), a coworker reported her for sleeping on duty, texting, and failing to stock rooms. During the ensuing investigation, Hileman denied sleeping but admitted she “might have shut her eyes” due to dry eye caused by a change in her diabetes medication — the first time she disclosed her diabetes to the employer. She never explicitly requested an accommodation or leave. West Penn fired her for misconduct shortly after.

Claims: Hileman sued under the ADA and PHRA (disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, retaliation, wrongful termination) and the FMLA (interference), 42 U.S.C. § 12112; 43 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 951. The district court granted summary judgment to West Penn.

Procedural sanctions issue: Hileman’s counsel, Joshua Ward, moved to supplement the appellate record with material not before the district court — denied, since no “exceptional circumstances” justified departing from the normal rule confining review to the trial court record (Fed. R. App. P. 10(a), (e)(2); Burton v. Teleflex). The court also found the supplementation motion contained misquotations (possibly AI-generated hallucinations), and noted Ward’s prior sanctions history in the circuit (Sofaly v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs.) and a pending show-cause matter. The panel sanctioned Ward personally $14,636.50 in fees, payable by him and not recoverable from his client.

Merits holding — affirmed for the employer:

• To prevail on a failure-to-accommodate claim, an employee must show the employer knew she needed an accommodation and failed to provide one. Hileman never asked for one — she disclosed her diabetes only when confronted about sleeping, and even then only said she was “praying” and adjusting medication, never requesting anything specific.
• Employers aren’t required to intuit an accommodation request absent some signal — an employee must communicate her need through direct or other clear means (Conneen v. MBNA). Unlike cases where the need was obvious from known facts (e.g., a known hospitalization for mental illness in Taylor v. Phoenixville), nothing put West Penn on notice that ordinary complaints (dry eye, fatigue) masked a disability.
• For foreseeable FMLA leave, an employee must give notice (generally 30 days, or as practicable) — Hileman gave none.
• Even treating her statement as an accommodation request, the ADA doesn’t excuse misconduct violating neutral workplace rules (sleeping on duty), and she showed no evidence of pretext or disparate treatment (the one comparator she cited was never reported or investigated).
• Because West Penn had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason (misconduct) and Hileman raised her medical issue only on the eve of termination, her retaliation and wrongful-termination claims failed too.

Bottom line: Judge Bibas’s opening line captures the holding: disability and medical-leave laws are “shields against discrimination, not get-out-of-discipline-free cards.” An employee must give the employer clear notice of a disability and a request for accommodation or leave before discipline — raising it belatedly, after being confronted with misconduct, doesn’t retroactively convert a legitimate firing into discrimination. Affirmed.

Comment: Think long and hard before submitting a brief that is the product of AI hallucinations. Don’t do it. Cite check every case. It is not that difficult. I remember learning to check the books myself and going to the law library, something completely foreign to young lawyers today.

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Ed Clinton, Jr.