Plaintiff Dan Robson sued defendant Netsmart Technologies, Inc. in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas raising claims of disability discrimination and retaliation under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Before the court is Defendant Netsmart Technologies, Inc.’s motion for summary judgment.
Statement of Undisputed Facts
Netsmart is a healthcare software company that employed plaintiff as Vice President of Client Alignment from February 7, 2022 to September 1, 2023. In this role, plaintiff led a team responsible for maintaining and growing relationships with existing clients, focusing on uplifting legacy clients and adding sales of ancillary products. Plaintiff had extensive pharmaceutical sales experience but lacked experience in the healthcare information technology industry.
In April 2022, approximately two months into his employment, plaintiff was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he disclosed to Netsmart’s executive team. He required two weeks off for surgery and seven weeks during which he could not travel for radiation treatment from May to July 2022. Netsmart approved his time off without problems and granted his accommodation requests.
Plaintiff’s sales performance consistently fell short of goals. For the last three quarters of 2022, he met only 34 percent, 43 percent, and 63 percent of his sales goals respectively. The Post-Acute Client Alignment business unit had struggled since 2018 and had not hit 100 percent of sales numbers since 2019. After Netsmart reduced sales goals company-wide in 2023 because everyone was struggling, plaintiff exceeded his first quarter goal but performed poorly in the second quarter.
Netsmart’s leadership expressed concerns about plaintiff’s performance as early as April 2022. Supervisors Paul Anderson and Dawn Iddings observed that plaintiff struggled to understand the business and needed constant direction rather than operating independently as expected of an executive. When Iddings became plaintiff’s supervisor in February 2023, she initially provided positive feedback and awarded him a merit increase in April 2023.
In mid-May 2023, plaintiff informed Iddings that his cancer had returned and he would need another seven weeks without travel for radiation treatment. Iddings immediately approved this accommodation. However, by June 2023, Iddings began providing increasingly critical feedback about plaintiff’s performance, particularly regarding his failure to close deals and provide leadership to his team.
Following poor end-of-quarter performance in June 2023, Iddings and Anderson began exploring other positions within the company for plaintiff but were unsuccessful as other department leaders lacked confidence in his abilities. On July 11, 2023, they decided to terminate plaintiff’s employment. Plaintiff did not argue with the decision or claim it was related to his cancer.
After plaintiff’s termination, Netsmart rehired Brad Carey, plaintiff’s predecessor who had also failed to meet sales goals, along with promoting Matt Nielsen. Neither disclosed any disabilities to Netsmart. Netsmart later terminated Iddings in May 2024 due to the Post-Acute Client Alignment group’s continued poor performance.
Legal Analysis
Disability Discrimination Claim:
The court applied the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework to evaluate plaintiff’s disability discrimination claim. To establish a prima facie case, plaintiff must show he was disabled, qualified to perform essential job functions with or without accommodation, and suffered adverse employment action because of his disability. Defendant conceded the first two elements but contested causation.
The court found plaintiff could not establish the required causal connection between his disability and termination. Although plaintiff argued temporal proximity based on his May 2023 disclosure that his cancer had returned and his July 2023 termination, the court noted that defendant had known about his cancer for over a year since his initial April 2022 diagnosis. During this period, defendant had accommodated his needs without complaint. The court held that where an employer has been aware of a disability for “quite some time” before termination, temporal proximity alone cannot establish causation.
Plaintiff also argued that being replaced by non-disabled individuals created an inference of discrimination. However, the court found this evidence insufficient because the record contained no evidence that plaintiff’s travel restrictions affected his performance or that defendant considered disability status in its decision-making. The court noted that defendant also terminated Iddings, who was not disabled.
Regarding pretext, defendant argued it terminated plaintiff due to legitimate performance issues including failure to meet sales goals and inability to lead his team effectively. Plaintiff contended these reasons were pretextual, arguing that criticisms were disingenuous, defendant offered varying accounts of the termination decision, and he was subjected to heightened scrutiny after disclosing his disability.
The court rejected plaintiff’s pretext arguments. It emphasized that the inquiry focuses on whether defendant honestly believed its stated reasons, not whether the assessment was wise or correct. The court found that defendant’s expectations may have been unrealistic given the unit’s history of poor performance, but plaintiff presented no evidence that defendant did not genuinely believe he was failing to meet performance expectations. The chronology of feedback changing from positive to negative was consistent with defendant’s growing frustration with plaintiff’s inability to grow into his executive role.
Retaliation Claim:
For the retaliation claim, plaintiff must prove he engaged in protected activity, suffered adverse employment action, and a causal connection exists between the protected activity and adverse action. Defendant conceded the first two elements but contested causation.
Unlike the disability discrimination claim, the court found plaintiff could establish causation for retaliation through temporal proximity. Plaintiff’s May 2023 request for accommodation not to travel followed by his July 2023 termination fell within the timeframe courts have found sufficient for prima facie retaliation cases. The court distinguished this from the disability discrimination claim because the accommodation request was a discrete protected activity occurring close in time to the termination.
However, the court found plaintiff could not establish pretext for the same reasons discussed in the disability discrimination analysis. Defendant’s performance-based justifications for termination were legitimate and nondiscriminatory, and plaintiff failed to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether these reasons were pretextual.
The court sustained defendant’s motion for summary judgment on both the disability discrimination and retaliation claims.
Schrag on Law 