What HR teams processing COVID exemptions need to know now
Approving a vaccine exemption does not mean admitting an employee is disabled under federal law, a U.S. appeals court ruled on February 27.
That distinction matters for every HR team that processed medical exemption requests during the COVID-19 vaccine mandate era – and for those still managing the legal fallout from those decisions.
In a decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with FMC Technologies, an oil-and-gas solutions company that does business as TechnipFMC, affirming a lower court ruling that rejected a disability discrimination claim brought by a former employee.
The case traces back to November 2021, when FMC rolled out a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy for certain employees. The move was driven largely by its clients, many of whom had already imposed similar requirements for workers at offshore and shore-based sites. For FMC, vaccination became a condition of employment.
Dakota Pietsch, who worked as a subsea-technical-services employee at the time, has a heart condition called mitral-valve prolapse. His physician provided a medical statement indicating his condition prevented him from receiving the vaccine, and FMC approved his exemption request. So far, so reasonable.
The problem came next. FMC told Pietsch he could not remain in his current role and placed him on paid administrative leave while it looked for alternatives. The company offered him a handful of other positions – including frac-flowback supervisor and machinist – but Pietsch found them unsuitable and said the pay was significantly lower. He resigned in April 2022 and later filed a disability discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before taking the matter to federal court.
His argument was straightforward: his heart condition prevented him from getting vaccinated, which prevented him from keeping his job, which meant his condition substantially limited a major life activity – the legal standard required to establish a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The court did not buy it.
The Fifth Circuit found the causal chain too indirect. Pietsch was working with his heart condition before the vaccine mandate came into play. His impairment did not stop him from doing his job. It stopped him from getting a vaccine, which then stopped him from keeping that specific job. That extra step, the court said, was one step too many under the law.
The court drew on an earlier ruling – though one carrying persuasive rather than binding authority – involving similar facts, where employees argued that health conditions preventing vaccination made them disabled under the ADA. That decision had already established that this kind of indirect, multi-step limitation does not meet the legal bar.
In a separate concurring opinion, Circuit Judge Don Willett put it plainly: disability under the ADA turns on what an impairment limits directly, not on what it may set in motion down the line. Congress designed the law to be read broadly, he wrote, but not without limits.
For HR professionals, two takeaways stand out. First, approving a medical exemption is not the same as acknowledging that an employee has a legally recognized disability. Pietsch himself admitted in his deposition that FMC never made that admission – and the court agreed it was not required to.
Second, while the court's ruling turned entirely on whether Pietsch had a qualifying disability – not on whether FMC's accommodations were adequate – the case is a reminder that maintaining a clear record of the interactive accommodation process and any alternative positions offered remains sound practice for employers. That paper trail becomes important if and when a case does reach the point of scrutinizing what an employer actually did.
Vaccine mandate litigation has not gone away. Employees continue to file claims in courts across the country, and not every case will land in the Fifth Circuit. But this ruling adds to a growing body of decisions holding that an inability to receive a vaccine – even for legitimate medical reasons – does not automatically confer protected disability status under federal law.
For HR and employment counsel still fielding claims connected to pandemic-era policies, that is a useful development to have on the record.
