In January 2026, a New Jersey jury awarded teacher Tracey Silverschotz nearly $900,000 in compensatory damages after finding that her school district retaliated against her and constructively discharged her for raising accommodation requests. With punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and costs, the final judgment exceeded $1.6 million. The district is appealing the verdict.
The dispute began in February 2020 after Silverschotz, who was previously accommodated for her significant hearing loss, requested reassignment from a sixth-grade math classroom to an Academic Skills position with smaller classes. Her supervisor denied the request and said Silverschotz could not have the position “just because it would help her hearing issues,” and that the job would go to “the most qualified candidate.” Silverschotz then submitted a formal accommodation request, which was denied based on performance concerns and a view that she was not the “right fit.”
After extended medical leave for another issue, Silverschotz returned to work with a physician’s note recommending a smaller classroom and other accommodations. Rather than engage in the interactive process, the district instead placed her in a “floater” position. She was later placed on corrective performance action plans and received reprimands.
In January 2023, Silverschotz filed an internal complaint alleging discrimination and retaliation for her accommodation requests. An external investigator retained by the district found no evidence of either. Silverschotz retired that April and later sued the district under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD). After a seven-day trial, the jury rejected her disability discrimination claim but found that she was retaliated against for raising concerns about her accommodation requests and constructively discharged.
The record in Silverschotz v. Randolph Township Board of Education, decided by a New Jersey Superior Court jury on Jan. 29, 2026, presents a question the verdict does not answer because the failure-to-accommodate claim was not before the jury: could meaningful engagement in the interactive process have changed what followed?
The Interactive Process
The facts behind the unfiled failure-to-accommodate claim illustrate the misstep most employers make when handling accommodation requests: treating the request as a decision to be made rather than a conversation to be started.
Both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the NJLAD expressly include reassignment to a vacant position as a reasonable accommodation, absent undue hardship. Reassignment is generally an accommodation of last resort, reached when an employee can no longer perform the essential functions of her current position even with accommodation.
Whether reassignment was the right answer in the Silverschotz case is precisely the question the interactive process exists to resolve. That process is meant to be interactive and iterative; it is not “one and done.” In 2002, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court in New Jersey explained that the interactive process is intended to identify the potential reasonable accommodation that could address the employee’s limitations. See Tynan v. Vicinage 13 of Superior Court of New Jersey, 351 N.J. Super. 385, 400 (App. Div. 2002). The court further explained that an employer may be liable where it was aware of the disability, an accommodation was requested, and it could have reasonably accommodated the employee but for its failure to act in good faith. The Third Circuit has also adopted the Tynan test in determining if the employer failed to engage in the interactive process and, thus, failed to reasonably accommodate the employee. See Armstrong v. Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hosp., 438 F.3d 240 (3d. Cir. 2006).
Viewed through that framework, the district already knew of Silverschotz’s disability because it had installed an amplification system for her and received medical documentation describing her limitations. There was also little ambiguity that an accommodation had been requested. Silverschotz expressly tied her reassignment request to her hearing loss, and both her supervisor and the HR director understood her to be seeking an accommodation. Even still, employees need not use magic words to trigger the interactive process. In Tynan, the court explained that an employer cannot expect an employee to know that he or she must specifically say “I want a reasonable accommodation.”
The good-faith effort to accommodate Silverschotz, however, is questionable. The supervisor’s response that Silverschotz could not have the position “just because it would help her hearing issues” inverts the analysis. The connection to her disability is what made this an accommodation request, not what disqualified it. Even crediting the district’s view that performance made her a poor fit, the record does not reflect that anyone explored other options. The interactive process is not a checkbox exercise; it is where the parties work out what will enable the employee to perform the essential functions of the job. In Silverschotz, no one asked what stopped working in her classroom, how the position sought would accommodate her condition or explore other vacancies as potential accommodations.
The record does not establish whether reassignment was available or whether a meaningful interactive process would have produced a different result. It does show what remained unresolved. The district said Silverschotz was not the most qualified candidate, but that did not answer whether she was qualified for the position or whether reassignment would have imposed an undue hardship. The district later relied on performance concerns, yet the record raises questions about when those concerns first appeared and whether they were communicated before the accommodation request. Silverschotz also spent several weeks teaching the same Academic Skills class as a floater after her request was denied. A meaningful and continued interactive process would have required the district to examine and reconcile those facts before deciding to deny her request.
Qualified, Not Most Qualified
The supervisor said the position would go to “the most qualified candidate,” conflating the reasonable accommodation and hiring processes. Under Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance, an employee seeking reassignment must be qualified for the vacant position, meaning she satisfies the requisite skill, experience, education, and other job-related requirements, and can perform its essential functions with or without accommodation. She need not be the best qualified individual.
Congress enacted the ADA to remove barriers that keep qualified people with disabilities from working. Directing an employee who has requested reassignment as an accommodation to apply through the ordinary hiring process or declining to consider her because someone else ranks higher treats the matter as an ordinary personnel decision and sidesteps the ADA’s barrier-removal purpose. The case law on this issue, however, is not as straightforward as one would think.
The Supreme Court held in US Airways, Inc. v. Barnett that employers generally are not required to violate a bona fide seniority system to accommodate disabled employees. 535 U.S. 391 (2002). Some federal appellate courts have interpreted that decision to permit employers to require an employee seeking reassignment to compete under a most-qualified-applicant policy. See EEOC v. St. Joseph’s Hospital, Inc., 842 F.3d 1333 (11th Cir. 2016) and Huber v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 486 F.3d 480 (8th Cir. 2007).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, however, interpreted Barnett differently because the Supreme Court also held that neutral workplace rules do not exempt employers from making accommodations and that the ADA sometimes requires preferential treatment to ensure equal opportunity. In EEOC v. United Airlines, Inc., the Seventh Circuit held that “the ADA does indeed mandate that an employer appoint employees with disabilities to vacant positions for which they are qualified, provided that such accommodations would be ordinarily reasonable and would not present an undue hardship to that employer.” 693 F.3d 760 (7th Cir. 2012).
New Jersey courts have not squarely addressed whether an employee seeking a reassignment as an accommodation must be the best-qualified candidate. However, the Third Circuit has held that the Barnett two-part analysis applies when a suggested accommodation conflicts with a disability-neutral rule: (1) did the employee show the request is reasonable; and (2) if so, did the employer show granting the accommodation would cause an undue burden. Shapiro, 292 F.3d at 360-61 (3d Cir. 2002). In Shapiro, the Third Circuit found that an employer could not deny a reasonable accommodation request for a reassignment simply because the employee did not comply with its transfer-application policy, particularly when the employee was qualified for the vacancies. Id.
For investigators, the key evidentiary question is whether the employer treated reassignment as part of the accommodation process before defaulting to its ordinary hiring criteria, not just who was selected for the vacancy. Silverschotz’s experience teaching the Academic Skills class as a floater did not establish that she was entitled to the permanent position. It did, however, create evidence relevant to whether she could perform the role’s essential functions. An investigator should compare that experience with the district’s stated performance concerns, determine whether those concerns were documented before the accommodation request, and examine whether the district assessed qualification and undue hardship rather than relying only on who was considered the most qualified applicant.
For Investigators: What to Collect and What to Ask
When a failure-to-accommodate dispute reaches a workplace investigator, the primary issue is whether there was engagement between the parties. Contemporaneous documents show whether the parties acted in good faith and how the employer reasoned its way to the reasonable accommodation decision. Thus, beyond obtaining the accommodation request and any written decision, the investigator should also consider asking for:
- prior related accommodation requests for the employee and their outcomes;
- the medical documentation the employer requested, redacted as necessary to preserve the employee’s medical privacy; and
- the position description and stated essential functions for the vacancy.
If performance was considered in the denial, investigators should review the employee’s performance file to include evaluations, improvement plans, and discipline issued both before and after the accommodation request. The employee’s evaluation history compared before and after the request matters because criticism that surfaces only after the reasonable accommodation request is important to the “qualified” determination. To that end, investigators should seek written communications discussing the accommodation request, regardless of format, such as emails, Teams chat, group texts, or memos to file documenting phone calls.
Where the documents do not tell the whole story, the people involved can fill in those gaps. Investigators should determine who recognized the employee’s request as an accommodation request and when; what happened between the request and the denial, if anything, and how long it took from start to finish; and who actually made the decision, which notably is not always the person who signed the determination letter. They should determine what reason the employee was given at the time for the denial and whether it matches the reason offered later.
The inquiry should also address whether anyone asked if the employee’s existing accommodations were still working, whether accommodations in the current position were explored before reassignment was taken off the table, and how expansive the reassignment search was. Investigators should determine who assessed the essential functions of the position sought and against what standard.
If the employer has a pattern of granting similar reassignment accommodations but deviated in one instance, it will be important to understand the distinctions, if any. Investigators should consider how other employees’ accommodation requests were handled in the same period, whether those employees were routed through the ordinary hiring process, and whether anyone received a reassignment without applying.
Practical Guidance for Employers
The evidentiary record is built long before an investigator gets involved. Employers can reduce the risk of failure-to-accommodate findings by simply asking “how can I help you” when an employee gives any indication of struggling at work. Having a conversation, i.e., an interactive process, costs nothing and gives the employee an opening to tell you what they need. Any engagement with the employee should be documented as it occurs, particularly when requesting medical information. A short memo to the file after each conversation can establish what was discussed and considered. An employer that engaged but cannot show it is in nearly the same position as the employer that never engaged.
With reassignment requests, employers should exhaust the conversation first. Ask what changed, what has been tried, and what else might work in the current role. While an employer does not have to provide the accommodation requested, what it provides should be effective, and sometimes that will be a reassignment. If there are concerns about the employee’s qualifications for the vacancy, explore alternatives. Performance concerns should be addressed in real time. Give the feedback when the issue arises, rather than saving it for the performance evaluation cycle or raising it after an employee requests an accommodation.
Finally, employers should write job descriptions that state essential functions clearly. Employers get considerable deference in defining essential functions, but a written job description that is consistently applied makes the defense that much stronger.
The Lesson That Does Not Depend on the Appeal
Silverschotz never brought a failure-to-accommodate claim, and the jury was never asked to decide one. A better interactive process therefore cannot be said to have prevented the retaliation and constructive-discharge verdict. It might, however, have required the district to confront unanswered questions before the dispute escalated: whether Silverschotz was qualified for the Academic Skills role, whether the later-raised performance concerns were supported and timely communicated, why she could teach the class as a floater but was not considered for the permanent position, and whether another effective accommodation was available.
However the district’s appeal ultimately lands, the durable lesson is the same: when an employee connects a workplace difficulty to a disability, the employer should begin a documented, good-faith conversation rather than treat the request as an ordinary personnel decision.
