The National Grid gas company must pay a total of $3.1 million to two ex-workers with health issues for rejecting their requests to continue working from home after the pandemic, a Brooklyn jury has ruled.

The utility firm, which has millions of customers in New York, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as state and city human-rights laws, by refusing to allow emergency-gas dispatchers Luciano Russo and George Messiha to continue their telework schedules to better manage their medical conditions, according to the Oct. 10 ruling in federal court.

The verdict is potentially precedent-setting by saying telework can be invoked as a fair and reasonably protected accommodation for workers under the disability law. 5

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“Employers, mainly large ones, do view disable

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