When Work Turns On You and Your Cancer: Owoyemi v. DB USA Core Corp.

Send us Fan Mail Imagine giving nine years to a global bank, working 60 to 70 hours a week, then getting hit with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis and realizing your employer isn’t trying to support you. It’s trying to outlast you. We unpack a freshly filed federal case and a new court ruling out of the Southern District of New York to show how quickly a “valued employee” can become “medically inconvenient.”  We walk through the patterns that show up again and again in disability discrimination and reasonable accommodation disputes: the loyalty trap that keeps high performers grinding through treatment, the bureaucratic wall that turns short-term disability into an obstacle course, and the weaponized silence that avoids a clean decision while increasing pressure. We also break down the “pretextual squeeze” playbook: sudden relocation demands, tight deadlines, pay cuts, and other moves designed to manufacture a “voluntary” exit without an official firing.  Then we translate Judge Jennifer L. Rochon’s decision into plain English: the EEOC right-to-sue technical argument that fails, the ADA failure-to-accommodate claim that survives, and the frustrating reality of retaliation law where timing gaps can break causation. We also explain the comparator trap in race discrimination claims and why courts demand extreme detail about “similarly situated” coworkers before discovery.  If you care about employment law, the ADA, the NYC Human Rights Law, workplace accommodations, and how HR and legal teams build timelines, this is your roadmap. Subscribe, share this with someone navigating medical leave, and leave a review with your biggest question about documenting and protecting an accommodation request. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, X and LinkedIn.   We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leaving a review will help other employees find the Employee Survival Guide.  For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com. **Disclaimer:  For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.**