Working from home as a "reasonable accommodation" required by the Americans with Disabilities Act will undoubtedly be a significant employment litigation battleground over the next few years. After all, virtually every job where an employee is required to work on a computer went "virtual" for some or all of the last few years. Most of us have become quite adept at working in sweat pants and a suit jacket and many employers saw their businesses not only survive, but in some instances, thrive over the past two years. But workplaces across the country are re-opening and many of those thriving employers are now expecting/requiring employees to return to their long-empty offices, with proclamations that "we need our employees to collaborate" and concerns over whether employees are "really working" with the dog barking in the background.

But it may be hard for employers to proclaim that being physically present in the office is an "essential function" of the job when the job has been successfully performed for two years from home. A recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Costa v. Genesis Administration Services, No. 20-1851, 2022 US Dist. LEXIS 60372 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 30, 2022), although involving pre-pandemic circumstances, illustrates perfectly the challenges employers will face when an employee seeks to work from home as an ADA accommodation.