Her manager's alleged reply to a mental health request set the tone
A TD Bank customer service representative alleges she was fired while on mental health leave - weeks after her manager allegedly told her the company doesn't "do accommodations."
The worker, who was based remotely in Pennsylvania but employed through TD Bank's Mount Laurel, New Jersey office, filed a federal lawsuit on October 12, 2026, in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey. The complaint brings claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, and the New Jersey Family Leave Act.
According to the filing, the worker spent roughly two years as a customer service representative, starting in September 2023. From early on, she told her supervisor and the bank's HR department that she might occasionally need time away to care for her 12-year-old stepson, who has hydrocephalus - a condition where fluid builds up in the brain, causing headaches, nausea, and mobility issues. The absences, she alleges, were minimal - sometimes as short as 20 minutes to collect him from school and return, mostly during winter when his symptoms flared.
She was initially told it would not be a problem.
That changed, the complaint alleges, around the winter of 2023-2024. Her supervisor allegedly began showing "extreme frustration and distaste" for the stepson's health conditions and the worker's need to care for him. The filing claims the supervisor denied the worker time off while granting it to other employees for "purely personal or random reasons" - employees who did not have disabled family members.
The complaint alleges the supervisor went further, cancelling approved time-off requests and forcing the worker to find alternative care for her stepson at short notice. Whatever time the worker did take, the filing states, she made up through overtime and extended hours.
Then the worker's own health began to suffer. The complaint alleges that by around September 2024, anxiety and depression had taken hold, and she asked her supervisor for time off for her own mental health.
The response, according to the filing: "we don't do accommodations for people." Her supervisor allegedly added, "I can't even get any time for my own health conditions."
The worker kept working.
Here is where the complaint raises a pointed compliance question. The worker became eligible for FMLA leave around September 2024 - 12 months after her start date. But the filing alleges TD Bank never told her. Not for her own conditions. Not for her stepson's. Instead, the complaint states, her supervisor continued issuing attendance points for disability-related absences while HR "simply ignored" the worker's complaints and told her to take them up with her supervisor.
It was not until March 2025 that the worker was finally able to take a few days off for her mental health. That is when TD Bank's third-party leave administrator, the Hartford, informed her for the first time that her leave qualified under the FMLA, the complaint alleges - roughly six months after she became eligible.
Then came July 23, 2025. The complaint alleges the worker suffered a severe flare-up and asked her supervisor for a mental health day without accumulating attendance points. She was told to contact the Hartford. She did. Her therapist submitted the required medical paperwork. Around August 1, 2025, the filing states, she received an email confirming the Hartford had received the documentation.
Silence followed.
When the worker reached out to the Hartford around August 12, 2025, to ask about payment, she was told for the first time that the documentation had not been received. The next day, her FMLA leave was denied.
On around August 18, 2025, the complaint alleges, a bank HR representative emailed the worker to say her leave claim had been "denied and closed" and that she was "currently on an unapproved leave of absence." The following day, the filing states, the HR representative told her she had two days to provide medical documentation or her absence would be treated as a voluntary resignation.
The worker responded with an email invoking her FMLA rights. According to the complaint, she wrote that she had "not and will not resign" from her position and flagged that "employers are prohibited from interfering with or retaliating against employees for exercising these rights."
One day later, the complaint alleges, TD Bank emailed to say it considered her to have voluntarily resigned.
The lawsuit alleges TD Bank discriminated against the worker based on her own disabilities and her association with her stepson's disabilities, subjected her to a hostile work environment, retaliated against her for requesting leave, and failed to accommodate her. Separate claims mirror these allegations under New Jersey state law. The complaint also alleges the bank interfered with and retaliated against the worker's FMLA and NJ Family Leave Act rights - including by failing to designate her disability-related absences as protected leave from September 2024 onward.
The complaint seeks back pay, front pay, benefits, punitive and liquidated damages, emotional distress damages, attorneys' fees, and a jury trial.
For HR teams, the case is a practical reminder that attendance-point systems do not exempt employers from their FMLA notice obligations - and that a two-day deadline to produce medical paperwork while on leave is a timeline most employees would struggle to meet.
The allegations in this complaint have not been tested, and no court has made any findings or rulings in the matter.
