Suit claims HR stripped duties, denied FMLA leave, and pressured employee to resign
Rocket Mortgage faces a federal lawsuit alleging its HR team mishandled disability accommodations, FMLA leave, and return-to-work protocols from start to finish.
The suit, filed on March 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Isberg v. Rocket Mortgage, LLC, Case No. 2:26-cv-10806), was brought by Ashley Isberg, a former Senior Applications Analyst who had been with the company since 2016. She alleges discrimination, retaliation, failure to accommodate, hostile work environment, and constructive discharge under the ADA, the FMLA, and Michigan's disability rights law. No final determination has been made, and the allegations remain unproven.
What makes this case worth watching is the alleged sequence of events, which reads like a case study in how HR processes can unravel when accommodation requests go unaddressed.
According to the suit, Isberg had disclosed four medically diagnosed conditions — POTS, Hashimoto's disease, anxiety, and depression — and had been granted remote-work accommodations. She had also earned four promotions, was invited into the company's Aspiring Leaders development program, and was recognized by both management and peers for exceptional performance.
That trajectory allegedly shifted after Isberg began requesting accommodations and taking medical leave. When she returned from leave in October 2024, the suit claims most of her duties had been reassigned to a non-disabled colleague. They were never restored. Projects stopped coming. She was cut from project communications. Promotions ceased.
Then came the resignation pressure. In May 2025, a director allegedly suggested Isberg step down due to her disabilities and serious health conditions and accept a separation package. She declined. A June 2025 meeting with HR allegedly repeated the push, and the suit claims Isberg suffered an emotional breakdown during the session. A severance offer followed right after — labeled, according to the filing, a "Career Transition Plan."
The FMLA process hit its own snags. When Isberg requested leave on June 26, 2025, the suit claims a senior benefits specialist denied it, citing only 1,220 accumulated work hours — while omitting hours from the prior days that would have cleared the 1,250-hour eligibility threshold. A three-day deadline to submit paperwork was also imposed, which the suit characterizes as artificial.
When Isberg submitted a new remote-work accommodation request on August 6, 2025, the suit alleges it was never processed or denied — simply ignored. Despite follow-ups in September, HR allegedly insisted she return in person on September 15, even though her condition made driving medically unsafe.
The suit characterizes the cumulative effect of these actions as constructive discharge.
For HR leaders, this filing raises pointed questions about what happens when accommodation workflows stall — when requests sit unanswered, when the interactive process never meaningfully begins, and when return-to-work protocols strip responsibilities rather than restore them.
It is the kind of case that belongs less in a legal brief and more in a department's next compliance review.
