EEOC Sues Alight Solutions for Disability Discrimination

CHICAGO — Alight Solutions, an employee benefits administrator headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois, violated federal law when it discriminated against an employee by denying him a reasonable accommodation for his diabetes, and then firing him because of the disability, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Alight Solutions refused the employee additional breaks during his shift to monitor blood sugar and to recover from diabetic episodes, even though he was willing to make up for the extra breaks by working a longer shift. Among other things, Alight used electronic attendance monitoring systems to track employee activity that did not appropriately account for the employee’s additional needed breaks. Instead of accommodating the breaks necessary for managing his disability, Alight terminated him instead.

“Federal law requires that employers accommodate disabled employees when it is not an undue hardship to do so,” said Catherine Eschbach, acting EEOC general counsel. “Allowing a diabetic employee a small amount additional break time to manage his condition, and ensuring the company’s tracking systems did not unfairly penalize him for those breaks, falls within the ADA’s core protections. The ADA’s protections remain in place even as new technologies become available.”

Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires the accommodation of disabilities absent undue hardship, and prohibits employers from discharging an employee because of their disability or because they requested an accommodation. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Alight Solutions, LLC, Case No. 1:26-cv-06361) in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

For more information on disability discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Chicago District Office has jurisdiction over Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota, with Area Offices in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.