Second Circuit Reaffirms Non-Reviewability of Denied Rule 59(a) Weight-of-the-Evidence Motions; “Effectiveness” Governs ADA Accommodations

Case: Raymond v. 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund (2d Cir. July 23, 2026)
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Panel: Sack, Pérez, JJ.; Preska, D.J. (sitting by designation)

1. Introduction

Raymond involves two distinct ADA theories arising from the end of a long-term employee’s career: (i) a failure-to-accommodate claim and (ii) a disability discrimination (termination) claim. Sean R. Raymond Sr., an Outreach Coordinator for the 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund (“NBF”), developed a serious vein condition culminating in medical restrictions—most critically, an instruction to avoid continuous sitting/driving for more than thirty minutes. The Outreach Coordinator role required travel to healthcare facilities in an assigned geographic “Area.”

After route changes and disputes over whether NBF would adjust his duties further (including Raymond’s request to be reassigned to a closer Area), Raymond went on disability leave. NBF ultimately terminated him, stating that he could not return “without any restrictions.” Raymond sued under the ADA, alleging (1) failure to provide reasonable accommodations and (2) discriminatory termination.

The district court granted summary judgment to NBF on the accommodation claim, and a jury later found for NBF on the discrimination/termination claim. On appeal, the Second Circuit (a) vacated summary judgment on the failure-to-accommodate claim and remanded, but (b) dismissed the appeal from the denial of a Rule 59(a) new-trial motion because, under Second Circuit precedent, that order is not reviewable when the motion is denied on “weight-of-the-evidence” grounds.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • Failure-to-accommodate: The district court applied the wrong legal standard by treating NBF’s partial route adjustment (removing four farthest facilities) as automatically sufficient. Under Second Circuit and Supreme Court authority, an accommodation must be effective—i.e., it must address the employee’s limitations and enable performance of essential job functions. Fact disputes remained (extent of Raymond’s limitation; whether remaining route still required >30 minutes of continuous driving). Summary judgment was therefore vacated.
  • Disability discrimination / Rule 59(a): The denial of Raymond’s Rule 59(a) motion, to the extent it challenged the verdict as against the weight of the evidence, is not appealable in the Second Circuit. The court dismissed that portion for lack of appellate jurisdiction, while noting that most other circuits permit review.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

A. Summary judgment framework

  • Bey v. City of New York: De novo review of summary judgment; evidence construed in favor of the nonmovant and reasonable inferences drawn in that party’s favor. The panel relied on this lens when emphasizing that Raymond’s testimony and the geographic evidence could support inferences about driving time and feasibility.
  • Uviles v. City of New York and Kulak v. City of New York: While ambiguities are resolved for the nonmovant, conclusory speculation does not defeat summary judgment. The court used this to frame what counts as a “genuine dispute” versus unsupported assertions.
  • United States v. Sum of $185,336.07 U.S. Currency Seized from Citizen's Bank Acct. L7N01967: Restates Rule 56(a)’s requirement of no genuine dispute of material fact for summary judgment.

B. ADA failure-to-accommodate elements and burdens

  • McBride v. BIC Consumer Prods. Mfg. Co.: Sets the four elements of an ADA failure-to-accommodate claim and describes the plaintiff’s “light burden” at the production stage. The panel uses McBride to focus the appeal on elements (3) and (4) (ability to perform with accommodation; refusal to accommodate).
  • Dean v. Univ. at Buffalo Sch. of Med. & Biomedical Scis.: “The hallmark of a reasonable accommodation is effectiveness.” The court identifies this principle as the district court’s key legal error: NBF’s response had to be evaluated for whether it actually accommodated Raymond’s limitations.
  • U.S. Airways, Inc. v. Barnett: An ineffective modification is not an accommodation; at summary judgment a plaintiff need show facial reasonableness, after which the employer may prove undue hardship. The panel draws directly from Barnett to structure the proper inquiry.
  • Noll v. Int'l Bus. Machs. Corp.: If the employer’s accommodation is reasonable/effective, the inquiry may end; reasonableness is often fact-specific. The panel uses Noll to emphasize that whether removing stops worked is typically a factfinder question.
  • Borkowski v. Valley Cent. Sch. Dist.: Explains burden shifting and the undue hardship concept; also notes proportionality (costs not clearly disproportionate to benefits). The court uses Borkowski to frame “reasonableness” and the employer’s ultimate hardship showing.
  • Gilbert v. Frank and Wernick v. Fed. Rsrv. Bank of N.Y.: A reasonable accommodation does not eliminate essential job functions and is not affirmative action in the sense of prioritizing disabled employees over others. The panel references Wernick when cautioning that reassignment cannot become an unfair “priority” if contrary to company practice.

C. Essential functions and the role of the jury

  • D'Amico v. City of New York: Courts give deference to employer judgments about essential functions.
  • McMillan v. City of New York: Essential functions are a “quintessential fact-bound inquiry” often for the jury; also supports using plaintiff testimony to defeat summary judgment where it could show an accommodation’s feasibility. The panel cites McMillan to justify leaving essential-function disputes and accommodation efficacy for the factfinder.

D. Evidence disputes about medical limitations

  • Tafolla v. Heilig: Supports the idea that disputes about limitations and their practical impact are for factfinding, not summary resolution.
  • Capobianco v. City of New York: Notes that unsworn physician letters are generally inadmissible hearsay for summary judgment purposes. The panel flags evidentiary complexity while still holding that factual disputes remained on the record as presented.

E. Reassignment / vacancy principle

  • Jackan v. N.Y. State Dep't of Lab.: Plaintiff must show a vacant position for transfer as a reasonable accommodation. The panel distinguishes this authority as potentially inapplicable where the request is not a new “position” but rather a different “assignment” within the same position, and also uses it to reject (as not facially plausible) Raymond’s alternative request to move to an unspecified different job.

F. Rule 59(a) reviewability and appellate jurisdiction

  • Ortiz v. Stambach: Identified “ambiguity” in Second Circuit cases; the panel in Raymond rejects the ambiguity characterization and treats the law as settled.
  • Ferreira v. City of Binghamton and Stonewall Ins. Co. v. Asbestos Claims Mgmt. Corp.: Establish the Second Circuit’s “seemingly odd” rule: denial of a Rule 59(a) weight-of-the-evidence challenge is not reviewable, while grants may be. These cases are the backbone of the dismissal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
  • Dutch Am. Mercantile Corp. v. Eighteenth Ave. Land Co.: Cited for the jurisdictional consequence—dismissal where review is barred.
  • United States v. Sterkaj: Panel adherence to circuit precedent absent en banc or Supreme Court change; used to acknowledge that other circuits differ but the panel is bound.
  • Sister-circuit authorities (e.g., Correia v. Fitzgerald, Leonard v. Stemtech Int'l Inc., Williams v. Gaye, etc.): cited not as controlling, but to underscore that the Second Circuit’s non-reviewability rule is an outlier.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. The “effectiveness” requirement: why the summary judgment analysis failed

The opinion’s central ADA holding is methodological: a court cannot deem an accommodation “reasonable” merely because the employer “responded” or reduced some burden. Relying on Dean v. Univ. at Buffalo Sch. of Med. & Biomedical Scis. and U.S. Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, the panel reiterates that the accommodation must be effective—it must actually address the disability-related limitation sufficiently to enable performance of essential functions.

The district court, in the panel’s view, effectively applied a “some accommodation was offered” standard. That was error because, on Raymond’s theory, removing only four farthest facilities could still leave many drives exceeding his stated medical cap (thirty minutes of continuous sitting/driving). An accommodation that does not solve the limitation it targets may be no accommodation at all under the ADA.

B. Why fact disputes precluded summary judgment

The panel identifies multiple contested, fact-intensive questions:

  • What were Raymond’s actual limitations? The doctor’s note is suggestive but not necessarily dispositive; the jury must determine whether it accurately reflects functional limits.
  • What did the job require in practice? Even if some facilities were more than thirty minutes away, parties disputed whether an Outreach Coordinator could pull over, stretch, or otherwise avoid continuous sitting/driving beyond thirty minutes.
  • Would the offered route change have worked? The record suggested the modified Area I still included numerous facilities beyond the alleged continuous-driving limit.

Because “reasonableness” is often fact-specific (Noll v. Int'l Bus. Machs. Corp.), the panel concluded these issues should not have been resolved on summary judgment.

C. The plaintiff’s “plausible accommodation” burden and the Area J request

The district court treated Raymond as proposing only one alternative: reassignment back to Area J, and found it implausible. The panel disagreed with that conclusion at the summary judgment stage. It pointed to record evidence (including geographic concentration and Raymond’s testimony) that Area J required less extended driving and could allow local-road stopovers.

NBF argued Area J was not “vacant,” invoking the reassignment-to-vacancy framework. The panel’s response is nuanced:

  • Position vs. assignment ambiguity: Raymond may not have been requesting a new “position” at all, but a different geographic assignment within the same Outreach Coordinator position, potentially placing the request outside a strict vacancy requirement.
  • Company practice matters: Even if ordinarily unreasonable, a request could be plausible if it aligns with how the employer actually manages assignments—analogizing to Barnett: if an employer frequently deviates from a formal system, an additional deviation may be reasonable.

The panel does not hold that reassignment to Area J must be granted; it holds that the district court’s “no plausible accommodation” conclusion was premature and must be revisited on remand under the correct burden framework and with attention to NBF’s real-world reassignment practices.

D. Rule 59(a) and the Second Circuit’s jurisdictional bar

On the post-trial side, the panel draws a sharp boundary: a denial of a Rule 59(a) motion arguing the verdict is against the weight of the evidence is not reviewable on appeal. Quoting Ferreira v. City of Binghamton’s reading of Stonewall Ins. Co. v. Asbestos Claims Mgmt. Corp., the panel characterizes this as a settled circuit rule: if the district judge denies the weight-of-evidence motion, the losing party’s “only appellate recourse” is a legal sufficiency challenge, not a weight-of-evidence challenge.

The court acknowledges the rule’s “oddness” and notes that sister circuits review such denials, but it treats itself as bound absent en banc reconsideration or Supreme Court intervention (citing United States v. Sterkaj). The practical outcome is case-dispositive for the appeal of the new-trial denial: the panel dismisses for lack of appellate jurisdiction.

3.3. Impact

A. ADA litigation: courts must test “effectiveness,” not mere “responsiveness”

Raymond reinforces a critical constraint on employers’ litigation positions and on district-court summary judgment reasoning: an employer cannot prevail simply by showing it did something to address a request. The accommodation must be evaluated for whether it actually resolves (or sufficiently mitigates) the limitation at issue so the employee can perform essential functions.

In practice, this encourages:

  • more granular evidence on actual job travel patterns, break permissibility, and real route times;
  • more careful parsing of “position” versus “assignment” in travel-heavy roles;
  • greater attention to internal assignment practices as evidence of what reassignment-type accommodations may be plausible.

B. Second Circuit appellate practice: Rule 59(a) denials remain a dead end for “weight” review

The opinion’s most concrete “rule announcement” is its emphatic rejection of “ambiguity” and its reaffirmation that a Rule 59(a) denial on weight-of-the-evidence grounds is not reviewable in the Second Circuit. That is a major procedural takeaway for trial and appellate strategy:

  • Parties seeking appellate review must preserve and frame issues as legal sufficiency challenges (e.g., Rule 50 issues), not merely weight-of-evidence arguments.
  • District judges’ denials of new-trial motions on weight grounds effectively become final within the circuit, absent some separate appealable error.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Reasonable accommodation: A change that helps a qualified employee with a disability perform the job. It need not be the employee’s preferred choice, but it must be effective (it must actually work).
  • Essential functions: The fundamental duties of the job (not minor tasks). Whether something is “essential” often depends on real-world practice and is frequently for the jury.
  • Plausible accommodation (summary judgment stage): The employee’s initial burden is relatively light—show an accommodation that appears reasonable on its face. The employer can later argue undue hardship.
  • Undue hardship: A significant difficulty or expense for the employer; it is typically the employer’s burden to prove once a plausible accommodation is identified.
  • Rule 59(a) “weight of the evidence” vs. “legal sufficiency”: “Weight” asks whether the jury got it wrong considering credibility and overall persuasiveness; “sufficiency” asks whether any reasonable jury could have found as it did given the evidence. In the Second Circuit, a district court’s denial of a Rule 59(a) weight-of-the-evidence motion is not appealable.

5. Conclusion

Raymond v. 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund delivers two important lessons. Substantively, it reiterates that ADA accommodations must be judged by effectiveness, and that fact disputes about limitations and actual job demands can preclude summary judgment even where the employer took some remedial steps. Procedurally, it forcefully reasserts a distinctive Second Circuit doctrine: when a district court denies a Rule 59(a) new-trial motion arguing that a verdict is against the weight of the evidence, that denial is not reviewable on appeal—leaving legal sufficiency as the principal appellate avenue.