Technician claims a blanket accommodation cap forced him off work, then cost him his job
A former HVAC technician says Sodexo's rigid 90-day cap on modified duty pushed him out of work and cost him his job.
That is the central claim in a lawsuit brought by Michael Corona, who filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas on April 21, 2026, under the caption Corona v. Sodexo, Inc. et al., No. 2:26-cv-02223. He is suing Sodexo, Inc. and its subsidiary, SDH Services West, LLC, under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Kansas law, alleging disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, retaliation, and retaliatory discharge tied to his workers' compensation claim.
Corona worked as an HVAC technician assigned to a Merck & Co. facility in De Soto, Kansas, from April 2023 until his termination on April 4, 2025, according to the filing. He says he hurt his left shoulder on the job in April 2024 and was later diagnosed with a rotator cuff tear, a superior labral tear, an AC joint injury, and an anterior labral tear. Surgery followed in June 2024, including rotator cuff repair, distal clavicle excision, and extensive debridement.
He returned to work that September on restrictions set by his workers' compensation providers, performing modified duties. But after 90 days, Corona alleges, the company pulled that accommodation under what he describes as a blanket rule capping modified duty for injured workers, even though work within his restrictions was still available. He says he was pushed back onto medical leave on December 17, 2024, and that his late-January request to resume light duty was turned down without any back-and-forth about alternatives.
The suit also points to comments Corona attributes to the Operations Director at the site. According to the filing, the director told him, "I tore my rotator cuff and never missed a day of work," and "I didn't need surgery," and remarked during team meetings, in a sarcastic tone, "Michael's still restricted."
Corona further claims that when Merck decided it wanted two HVAC technicians and a reliability engineer instead of three technicians, he was the one let go, despite having more tenure, more experience, and more HVAC certifications than the two workers who stayed on. One of them, he says, did not even have a valid driver's license to drive on site. The employee who delivered the news allegedly called it a "Merck directive." Corona adds that he had hired a workers' compensation attorney during his leave because wage-replacement benefits were not being paid.
For HR teams, the case is a familiar flashpoint: hard time limits on modified duty, the expectation of a genuine dialogue with employees each time accommodation needs shift, and the added scrutiny that comes when a termination closely follows a workers' compensation claim. Corona's suit also underscores how selection decisions in a staffing change can be second-guessed if tenure, qualifications, and business reasoning are not clearly documented.
Corona is seeking compensatory and punitive damages along with equitable relief. The allegations have not been tested in court, Sodexo and SDH Services West have not yet filed a response, and no ruling has been issued.
