Suit alleges paperwork still pending when bank terminated employee under attendance policy
A former Bank of New York Mellon associate alleges the bank fired him while his disability accommodation request was still pending in its system.
Gibbs Kanyongo Jr. sued BNY on May 12, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The complaint brings claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act for failure to accommodate, disability discrimination, and retaliation.
The story, as the filing tells it, begins on Aug. 4, 2025. Kanyongo - a Client Processing Associate in BNY's Loan Administration department in Pittsburgh - says he broke a bone in his foot and suffered ligament damage in his ankle playing basketball. Two days later, according to the complaint, a UPMC podiatrist diagnosed a severe ankle sprain and signed documentation stating Kanyongo was limited in his ability to walk and needed to work from home for six to eight weeks. He says he called BNY's HR department on Aug. 7 and asked how to submit it. The complaint says HR pointed him to the online portal and to BNY's "Medical Certification: Reasonable Accommodation" form.
What followed, the complaint alleges, was more than two months of back and forth.
Kanyongo says he submitted the certification on Aug. 26. According to the filing, BNY responded on Sept. 5 to say the doctor had filled out parts of the form incorrectly. Kanyongo says he got it redone. On Sept. 24, 2025, he says he emailed the corrected certification - signed by his treating provider - to [email protected], an inbox the complaint says HR had told him to use during a mandatory two-week security leave.
Twenty-three days later, on Oct. 17, 2025, the complaint says his manager called and told him he was being terminated for failing BNY's "Working Together" in-office requirement on two occasions. The filing alleges his accommodation request remained pending in BNY's process when that call was made.
The complaint raises three issues that sit squarely in HR territory.
The first concerns the interactive process. The filing alleges that during the 23 days between Kanyongo's Sept. 24 submission and his Oct. 17 termination, BNY did not contact him to say his documentation had not been received or processed, or that he remained at risk of termination. His AT&T telephone records, according to the filing, show a 37-minute call to BNY's People Team line on Oct. 14, three days before he was terminated.
The second concerns BNY's automated attendance system. Under the "Working Together" policy as described in the complaint, employees must work a minimum of three days per week in the office, and two violations within a 12-month period can trigger termination. The complaint says Kanyongo received a first violation notice in May 2025 for the period from March 23, 2025 to April 19, 2025 - before his injury. The filing alleges that on Oct. 17, 2025, he discovered an automated notification flagging him for a further violation covering Sept. 6 through Oct. 4, 2025, and that the automated system had also not credited his accommodation for an earlier flagged period ending Aug. 8, 2025 - the period the complaint says an HR representative had told him his completed accommodation would retroactively excuse.
The third concerns what the complaint frames as an inconsistency between BNY's position statement to the EEOC and BNY's own internal records. The complaint says BNY's position statement asserted that Kanyongo's manager, Sally Baker, "never told [Mr. Kanyongo] he was not allowed to enter in-office exceptions" and in fact "encouraged him to do so." The filing then cites BNY's own People Solutions portal entries from Sept. 19, 2025, which Kanyongo says recorded his report that his manager had advised him "he cannot keep using in-office exceptions & he can only use three in-office exceptions for the time being," and that "his manager is not approving of in-office exceptions."
According to the complaint, an HR representative had told Kanyongo earlier in the process that once his completed forms were received and approved, the accommodation would retroactively cover and excuse the flagged days. The filing alleges that step never took place.
Kanyongo also says he wrote a message in BNY's portal on Sept. 5, 2025, describing himself as "unable to walk or travel," having "been trying to get this request submitted and approved for over a month," and having "called every week talking to someone asking for an update." According to the complaint, he arranged to be picked up and transported on his broken foot to get the forms completed, and asked BNY's People Advisor Team to call his physician directly. The filing says BNY declined, citing HIPAA.
Kanyongo is seeking back pay, front pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees. He has demanded a jury trial. The complaint says he was unemployed for approximately six months after the termination, and that his new job pays roughly $5.00 per hour less than his BNY salary.
The allegations have not been tested in court. BNY has not yet filed a response to the complaint, and no court has ruled on the merits of any of Kanyongo's claims.
