Latria Harrison v. Dep't of Veterans Affairs

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0294n.06

No. 25-1921

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Jul 09, 2026 ) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk LATRIA HARRISON, ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; ) DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN DOUGLAS A. COLLINS, ) Defendants-Appellees. ) OPINION ) ) )

Before: BATCHELDER, GRIFFIN, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Latria Harrison sued her former employer, the Department of Veterans Affairs

(VA). She brought claims under the Rehabilitation Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act

(FMLA). In an extended opinion, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the VA

because the evidence created no genuine issues for trial. On appeal, Harrison merely copies and

pastes from her summary judgment brief filed below. Taking this route, Harrison fails to address

the district court’s reasoning in disposing of her claims, so we deem the claims forfeited and affirm.

I.

Harrison suffers from anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Because those conditions

were aggravated when she was assigned to work at the front of the seventh floor of the Detroit

Veterans Affairs Medical Center, she sought a reasonable accommodation. No. 25-1921, Harrison v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, et al.

In March 2020, her supervisor at that time granted her a partial accommodation. The

accommodation assigned Harrison to the rear portion of the seventh floor, placed her on a second-

floor rotation, and permitted her to take additional breaks. Almost two years later, a different

supervisor, Brian Humphries, purportedly instructed her to work at the front of the seventh floor

despite her accommodation. But Human Resources intervened, Humphries honored the

accommodation, and Harrison never worked at the front of the seventh floor.

Harrison later filed a formal EEOC complaint.1 She then filed this suit, alleging failure to

accommodate, harassment, and retaliation under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.,

and retaliation under the FMLA, 29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. The district court granted summary

judgment in the VA’s favor on all claims. Harrison timely appealed.2

II.

“An appellant’s goal is to undo the judgment below.” Stewart v. IHT Ins. Agency Grp.,

990 F.3d 455, 457 (6th Cir. 2021). That requires the appellant to successfully challenge the

grounds on which the district court relied in reaching its decision. Conversely, “where a plaintiff

fails to address the district court’s reasoning in disposing of a claim on summary judgment . . . we

have deemed the claim forfeited.” Rees v. W.M. Barr & Co., 736 F. App’x 119, 124 (6th Cir.

2018); see also Blick v. Ann Arbor Pub. Sch. Dist., 105 F.4th 868, 873 (6th Cir. 2024) (explaining

that “merely regurgitat[ing]” the brief filed below does not preserve challenges to the district

court’s decision); Grosswiler v. Freudenberg-Nok Sealing Techs., 642 F. App’x 596, 598–99

1 Shortly before, she also made another accommodation request, this time to work remotely, but the VA denied it. She did not include this matter in her EEOC complaint, however. 2 Harrison does not appeal the denial of the FMLA retaliation claim. -2- No. 25-1921, Harrison v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, et al.

(6th Cir. 2016) (holding that plaintiffs had abandoned an issue by failing to argue that the district

court’s independent basis for summary judgment was incorrect).

Applying those principles here, we conclude Harrison forfeited her claims. In the district

court, she argued that (1) the VA failed to accommodate her disability when Humphries instructed

her to work at the front of the seventh floor, (2) she suffered disability-based discrimination

regarding her telework accommodation request, (3) she was subject to a hostile work environment,

and (4) the VA retaliated against her under the Rehabilitation Act. The district court rejected each

claim, the latter two on multiple grounds.

Yet Harrison’s appellate brief does not challenge any of the district court’s reasons for

rejecting each of her claims—nor could it, given that it merely regurgitates her pre-decisional,

summary-judgment briefing. Thus, Harrison fails to preserve any challenge to the district court’s

disposition of her claims. See Stewart, 990 F.3d at 457; Scott v. First S. Nat’l Bank, 936 F.3d 509,

522–23 (6th Cir. 2019).

We affirm.

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