His boss had just praised his improvement and ended weekly performance checks
A property claims adjuster alleges Nationwide fired him just 16 days after he told his supervisor he had reinjured his hand and would likely need more medical leave.
The federal complaint, filed September 21 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, alleges Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company subjected the worker to disability discrimination, retaliation, and interference with his leave rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
The worker joined Nationwide in October 2020 as a property claims adjuster. His job included investigating losses, preparing damage estimates, communicating with policyholders and contractors, and deploying to catastrophe sites.
By mid-2023, according to the complaint, he began experiencing significant problems with his hand that affected typing, document handling, and sustained manual use. Nationwide knew about the condition - a company nurse was involved, and work modifications were made to help him keep performing his duties.
Then it got worse.
By February 2024, the complaint alleges, the hand condition had deteriorated to the point that he needed extended leave. He was approved through Nationwide's third-party administrator, The Hartford, for a period that included federally protected FMLA leave followed by disability leave. That absence ran through late November 2024.
He returned to work in early January 2025.
The rating that started it
Shortly after his return, his supervisor assigned him a "Developing" performance rating for the 2024 year, according to the filing. That rating blocked the merit-based pay increase the worker would otherwise have received.
The worker pushed back. He asked for the metrics behind the rating and raised concerns through HR and Nationwide's internal employee relations team - known as the Office of Associate Relations, or OAR - that his approved medical absence should not count against him.
What came next, the complaint alleges, was telling. During a one-on-one on April 23, 2025, the supervisor told the worker that a company employee relations consultant had contacted him about the complaint. He then questioned why the worker had gone to employee relations rather than raising it with him first.
When the worker pressed on the metrics, the supervisor said the rating was not actually based on the performance metrics the worker had challenged, according to the filing. Instead, it was based on the worker having been absent for most of 2024 and, in the supervisor's view, not having contributed enough during that period.
The supervisor knew the absence was for a medical condition and included federally protected leave, the complaint alleges.
Escalation and a surprise visit
The worker kept pushing. On April 24 - one day after the supervisor confronted him about the complaint - the supervisor removed previously discussed May vacation dates from Nationwide's scheduling system, according to the filing.
The worker complained the conduct was discriminatory and retaliatory. He followed up on April 24, April 29, and May 2, and on that last date gave the employee relations consultant a written summary laying out the performance-rating dispute, the supervisor's comments about his medical absence, and the PTO issue.
By late May, the matter had been escalated to a more senior employee relations representative. That representative contacted the worker on approximately May 20, 2025. Around the same time, the complaint alleges, the supervisor appeared without advance notice at the worker's catastrophe deployment in Birmingham, Alabama.
The senior representative contacted the worker again around June 2, 2025. She told him the supervisor denied wrongdoing but confirmed that the performance rating was based at least in part on the work attributed to the worker during his approved leave period, according to the filing.
The worker never received a written determination resolving his discrimination and retaliation complaints, the complaint states.
Corrective action, then improvement
About six weeks later, Nationwide issued the worker another corrective action, the filing alleges. On September 23, 2025, the company put him on a 30-day final written warning with weekly check-ins and performance tracking.
Those weekly meetings never happened during the original 30-day window, according to the complaint. When the period expired in October, it was the worker - not the supervisor - who contacted HR and employee relations to ask what was supposed to come next. Nationwide extended the monitoring by about two more weeks.
Then, on November 13, 2025, the supervisor told the worker the weekly tracking was ending and they would go back to normal monthly meetings. According to the complaint, the supervisor acknowledged measurable improvement - including in the worker's pending claims inventory and his customer-service survey scores.
No new final written warning was issued between that conversation and what happened next.
Sixteen days
On December 24, 2025, the worker told his supervisor two things, the complaint alleges. First, that he did not believe it was in either party's interest for him to keep reporting to his current supervisor, and he wanted a transfer to another manager, team, or department. Second, that he had reinjured the same hand that had previously required modifications and protected leave, and he needed further medical evaluation that would likely require more time off.
The supervisor said he would work on a transfer and look into the hand issue, and asked the worker not to go to HR just yet, according to the filing. They agreed to pick it up after the worker's scheduled vacation.
The worker did not resign or threaten to resign.
The supervisor did not tell the worker that termination had already been decided, the complaint states.
When the worker returned from vacation in early January 2026, a meeting was set for January 9. He expected it to address his transfer request and his hand.
Instead, Nationwide terminated him. The letter cited "Unsatisfactory Performance" and was signed by the same employee relations consultant who had been involved in addressing his earlier discrimination complaints, according to the filing.
What the complaint is chasing
The worker brings five claims: disability discrimination for the rating, pay denial, and termination; failure to accommodate his recurring hand condition by firing him before the process could start; retaliation under the ADA for the discipline and termination that followed his internal complaints; retaliation under the FMLA for penalising his use of protected leave; and interference with his FMLA rights by terminating him to prevent his anticipated leave.
He is seeking back pay, front pay or reinstatement, compensatory and punitive damages, liquidated damages, and attorneys' fees. A jury trial has been demanded.
For HR teams, the timeline alleged here is a textbook illustration of how performance management, leave administration, and internal complaint handling can converge into a single, compounding liability exposure - particularly when the same supervisor sits across all three.
None of the allegations have been tested, and no court has made any findings on the merits.
