Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 1 of 11 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-11668 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ JENNIFER L. WALLS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEM, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 2:23-cv-00150-JES-KCD ____________________ Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and JORDAN and BRASHER, Cir- cuit Judges. PER CURIAM: USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 2 of 11 2 Opinion of the Court 25-11668 Jennifer Walls appeals the summary judgment in favor of Lee Memorial Health System and against her complaint of disabil- ity discrimination, retaliation, and workers’ compensation interfer- ence. She also appeals the order denying her motion to alter or amend the judgment and the magistrate judge’s orders for sanc- tions and attorney’s fees. We affirm. Walls filed a complaint against Lee Memorial stating that she was a board-certified physician in pediatrics and pediatric emer- gency medicine who had been employed at Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida, which was operated by Lee Memo- rial, beginning in 2019. She alleged that she contracted COVID-19 in September 2020 and later developed “long COVID.” When she returned to work in April 2021, she was denied a part-time sched- ule. In September, she fell ill again and, in October, requested and was denied indefinite leave. She alleged disability discrimination, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12112, and the Florida Civil Rights Act, Fla. Stat. § 760.10, retaliation, under the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2615, and workers’ compensation interference, Fla. Stat. § 440.105. Lee Memorial moved to compel Walls to respond to its re- quests for discovery and for sanctions. A magistrate judge granted the motion and directed Lee Memorial to file details of its expenses. After Lee Memorial moved for attorney’s fees, the magistrate judge ordered Walls to pay $4,728. Lee Memorial also moved to sanction Walls for failing to comply with the discovery order. The magistrate judge granted the motion and directed Lee Memorial to USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 3 of 11 25-11668 Opinion of the Court 3 file a motion for fees if the parties could not agree on an amount. Lee Memorial filed a motion for attorney’s fees, which the magis- trate judge granted in part and ordered Walls to pay $2,688. Walls did not object to or appeal the magistrate judge’s orders. Lee Memorial moved for summary judgment. It argued that Walls’s claims of disability discrimination failed because she admit- ted that she could not perform the essential functions of her job as a pediatric emergency physician with or without reasonable ac- commodation. It argued that Walls was not terminated because of her disability but because she “was unable to work” with or with- out reasonable accommodation with no return date. It argued that Walls’s retaliation claim failed because there was no temporal proximity or causal connection between her medical leave and her termination. It also argued that Florida does not provide a right of action for workers’ compensation interference. Lee Memorial attached Walls’s depositions, in which she testified that, from the time of her last shift at Golisano on Septem- ber 27, 2021, to the present, she had been “unable to work in any position” according to her physician, and there were no “work- place accommodations that would help [her] return to work.” She could not identify any reasonable accommodation that would have enabled her to perform her job after October 1, 2021, and testified that, since that date, she has experienced “numbness and tingling in [her] upper right extremity,” which made her “unable to do any of the fine motor work or computer work that is required for pedi- USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 4 of 11 4 Opinion of the Court 25-11668 atric emergency medicine,” “brain fog,” “word-finding difficul- ties,” and “worsening fatigue.” She testified that, in January 2022, she briefly had a job as a medical director with another healthcare company but resigned because she was physically unable to do the job, which mainly involved “sitting at a desk.” She testified that she did not believe that any reasonable accommodation would have permitted her to keep working in that job. Walls also testified that, for 12 weeks from September 2020 to April 2021, she was on family medical leave, and that Lee Me- morial granted her the accommodation of additional leave time be- cause of her continued illness. She took a total of 27 weeks of leave. When she returned to work in April 2021, her supervisor initially proposed to have her “go directly to ten-hour shifts,” but they later agreed to a “step-up schedule” where Walls would “work two six- hour shifts, three eight-hour shifts, and three ten-hour shifts” be- fore returning to regular 12-hour shifts. Lee Memorial attached Walls’s schedule for April of 2021, which showed that she worked two 6-hour shifts, followed by one 8.5-hour shift and one 9.75-hour shift, followed by one 11-hour shift, one 11.5-hour shift, and one 10-hour shift in her first several weeks back to work before resum- ing regular 12-hour shifts. Walls also testified that she did not inform her supervisor that she was having difficulty making it through her shifts after she returned to work. She testified that, on the day of her last shift in September 2021, she was performing a “delicate procedure” on an infant, which involved sticking a small needle into the lower back USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 5 of 11 25-11668 Opinion of the Court 5 of the infant to check for an infection in the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord, when her thumb went numb, her head started hurting, and her right arm suddenly felt “tingly.” She com- pleted the procedure even though she thought it was unsafe to con- tinue. Walls also testified that one of her supervisors, Kathryn McGonegal, told her that she could not file for workers’ compen- sation because she could not prove that she contracted COVID-19 at work. Lee Memorial also attached McGonegal’s declaration, which confirmed that she told Walls that she “probably would not be able to show that she contracted” COVID-19 at work. McGon- egal stated that Walls did not inform her that she had been placed on a specific reduced schedule and that, between April and Septem- ber of 2021, Walls never requested any accommodation. McGon- egal stated that she received Walls’s email in October 2021 that she could not return to work and could not provide a date for when she would be able to return to work, which Lee Memorial also at- tached. She stated that she was present at the October 14, 2021, meeting where Walls was informed that Lee Memorial “could not accommodate her request for indefinite leave” and that, “since she could no longer perform the essential functions of her job with or without reasonable accommodation as an [emergency] pediatric physician[,] and there were no non-clinical and non-patient[-]facing positions into which to place her upon her return to work, [they] could not grant her accommodation request,” so her employment was terminated. USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 6 of 11 6 Opinion of the Court 25-11668 Lee Memorial also filed Walls’s job description; her employ- ment agreement, which stated that Lee Memorial reserved the right to terminate her with or without cause —and to pay her “a lump sum payment in an amount equal to the salary [she] would have” otherwise earned—if she was “totally disabled,” meaning that she was unable, with or without reasonable accommodation, to perform her essential duties as a result of a disability for at least 25 hours a week for at least 20 weeks during any 52-week period; and records from Walls’s physician stating that there were no ac- commodations that would allow her to return to work and that she would be unable to work in any occupation for the rest of her life assuming there was no change in her condition. It included an ap- plication Walls filed for Social Security Disability Insurance on Sep- tember 27, 2021, where she swore that, as of that date, she was un- able to work; the Florida Division of Workers Compensation de- nial of her workers’ compensation in January 2022 based on her inability to prove by clear and convincing evidence that she con- tracted COVID-19 in the course of her employment; and the ter- mination letter that stated that, “in lieu of 90-day notice,” Lee Me- morial would pay her “90 days of severance as a lump sum pay- ment in the amount of $78,001.56 less applicable taxes,” as well as an under-payment of $7,525.44, for a “total payout amount [of] $85,527.00 less applicable taxes.” The district court granted Lee Memorial summary judg- ment. It concluded that Walls was a qualified individual under the Americans with Disabilities Act when she made her first request for an accommodation in April 2021 and that she received a reasonable USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 7 of 11 25-11668 Opinion of the Court 7 accommodation in the form of a step-up schedule. Because the rec- ord established that Walls never requested a modification to her accommodation nor a different accommodation, the district court ruled that Lee Memorial owed no obligation to provide one. It ruled that Walls was no longer a qualified individual in October 2021, that her requested accommodation in October 2021 of indef- inite leave or transfer to another position that involved no patient contact were not reasonable, and that Lee Memorial had legitimate reasons for terminating her employment. It ruled that Walls failed to establish a close temporal proximity or causal link between her use of medical leave and her termination. And it ruled that Walls failed to state a claim for workers’ compensation interference. Walls moved to alter or amend the judgment, which the dis- trict court denied. The district court later approved Lee Memorial’s proposed bill of costs for $5,921.29. As an initial matter, Walls waived any challenge to the mag- istrate judge’s orders on sanctions and attorney’s fees by failing to object to those orders in the district court. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); O’Neal v. Am. Shaman Franchise Sys., Inc., 166 F.4th 1274, 1281–82 (11th Cir. 2026). We have held that a party’s failure to object to a magistrate judge’s non-dispositive order, under Rule 72(a), results in a waiver of the right to raise that objection on appeal from the final judgment. See Smith v. Marcus & Millichap, Inc., 106 F.4th 1091, 1100 (11th Cir. 2024). Because Walls failed to object to or appeal the magistrate judge’s orders to the district court, she waived any challenge to those orders. USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 8 of 11 8 Opinion of the Court 25-11668 We review a summary judgment de novo. Ismael v. Roundtree, 161 F.4th 752, 758 (11th Cir. 2025). Summary judgment is appro- priate when the record evidence shows “that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judg- ment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimina- tion “against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in re- gard to job application procedures, the hiring, advancement, or dis- charge of employees, employee compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.” 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). And the Florida Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination because of an employee’s “handicap.” FLA. STAT. § 760.10. The Florida Act does not define the term “handicap,” so Florida courts use the definition of “disability” in the American with Disabilities Act. Ring v. Boca Ciega Yacht Club Inc., 4 F.4th 1149, 1156 (11th Cir. 2021). “Given the parallel structure of the statutes, [we] analyze[] state-law disability discrimination claims under the [Florida Civil Rights Act] using the same framework as [we] do[] for claims made under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” D’On- ofrio v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 964 F.3d 1014, 1021 (11th Cir. 2020). The Americans with Disabilities Act imposes an affirmative duty for employers to provide employees reasonable accommoda- tions for known disabilities. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). To prevail on a claim of failure to accommodate, an employee must prove that she was a qualified individual with a disability, she made a spe- cific request for a reasonable accommodation, and the employer USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 9 of 11 25-11668 Opinion of the Court 9 failed to provide a reasonable accommodation. D’Onofrio, 964 F.3d at 1021. The Act defines “qualified individual” as one “who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the employment position that such individual holds or desires.” 42 U.S.C. § 12111(8). “[A] qualified individual with a dis- ability is not entitled to the accommodation of her choice, but only to a reasonable accommodation.” Slomcenski v. Citibank, N.A., 432 F.3d 1271, 1280 (11th Cir. 2005). A reasonable accommodation “en- ables the employee to perform the essential functions of the job.” LaChance v. Duffy’s Draft House, Inc., 146 F.3d 832, 835 (11th Cir. 1998). “Essential functions” are “the fundamental job duties of the employment position the individual with a disability holds or de- sires.” Id. If the employee cannot perform an essential function of her job with or without an accommodation, she is not a “qualified individual” covered by the Act. Davis v. Fla. Power & Light Co., 205 F.3d 1301, 1305 (11th Cir. 2000). The district court did not err in granting summary judgment against Walls’s claims of disability discrimination. In April 2021, when Walls returned to work after her first bout of COVID-19, she was a qualified individual with a disability, and she requested and was provided a reasonable accommodation in the form of a step- up schedule. See D’Onofrio, 964 F.3d at 1021; LaChance, 146 F.3d at 835. After her second bout of COVID-19 in the fall of 2021, Walls was no longer a qualified individual. As of September 27, 2021, Walls was unable to work in any position with or without reason- able accommodation and was totally disabled. Medical records from Walls’s primary treating physician and Walls’s application for USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 10 of 11 10 Opinion of the Court 25-11668 Social Security Disability Insurance support that conclusion. See Davis, 205 F.3d at 1305. Walls’s statement on her application that she was totally unable to work negates an essential element of her claim of disability discrimination. See Cleveland v. Pol’y Mgmt. Sys. Corp., 526 U.S. 795, 806 (1999). And in any event, Walls’s requested accommodations were not reasonable. See Wood v. Green, 323 F.3d 1309, 1314 (11th Cir. 2003) (an indefinite leave of absence is not a reasonable accommodation); Willis v. Conopco, Inc., 108 F.3d 282, 284 (11th Cir. 1997) (reassignment to a vacant position may be a reasonable accommodation only where “there is a vacant position available for which the employee is otherwise qualified”). The district court also did not err in granting summary judg- ment against Walls’s retaliation claim. The Family and Medical Leave Act entitles employees to take up to “12 workweeks of leave during any 12-month period” for “a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the functions of [her] posi- tion,” among other reasons. 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(D). It allows employees to sue for retaliation for taking leave. Id. § 2615(a)(2). To prevail on a claim of retaliation, “an employee must demon- strate that [her] employer intentionally discriminated against [her] in the form of an adverse employment action” for having exercised her rights and taken leave under the Act. Strickland v. Water Works & Sewer Bd., 239 F.3d 1199, 1207 (11th Cir. 2001). Walls failed to make that showing. And when an employer can prove that its mo- tives for an adverse employment action were “wholly unrelated to the FMLA leave, the employer is not liable.” Id. at 1208. USCA11 Case: 25-11668 Document: 34-1 Date Filed: 11/04/2026 Page: 11 of 11 25-11668 Opinion of the Court 11 The district court also did not err in granting summary judg- ment against Walls’s claim of workers compensation interference. Florida provides that “[n]o employer shall discharge, threaten to discharge, intimidate, or coerce any employee by reason of such employee’s valid claim for compensation or attempt to claim com- pensation.” FLA. STAT. § 440.205. It “creates a cause of action for employees who are subject to retaliatory treatment by their em- ployers for attempting to claim workers’ compensation,” Bifulco v. Patient Bus. & Fin. Servs., Inc., 39 So. 3d 1255, 1257 (Fla. 2010), but makes no reference to alleged interference. Even so, McGonegal did not interfere with Walls’s right to seek workers’ compensation. And Walls did not file for workers’ compensation until after she had been terminated, so she could not have been terminated in re- taliation for filing for workers’ compensation. See FLA. STAT. § 440.205; Bifulco, 39 So. 3d at 1257. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in deny- ing Walls’s motion to alter or amend the judgment. Berry v. Crest- wood Healthcare LP, 84 F.4th 1300, 1311 (11th Cir. 2023). Walls sought only to “relitigate old matters, . . . raise new argument[, and] present new evidence” that could have been raised before the entry of judgment. Id. at 1313. We AFFIRM the judgment in favor of Lee Memorial.