Worker With Flesh-Eating Disease Can’t Show Disability Bias

A former city worker in Minnesota can’t show he was discriminated against by his employer after contracting a deadly flesh-eating bacteria, a federal appeals court ruled.

Gary Brunckhorst failed to establish that being allowed to work from home when he was first able to return following “three life-saving surgeries” and nearly a year of leave was a reasonable disability-related job accommodation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said. The City of Oak Park Heights offered to return Brunckhorst to a new, lower-paying position because his senior accountant job had been eliminated while he was out.

Brunckhorst only ...