Which Employers Are Sued Most for Disability Discrimination? ADA Lawsuits, FY2021–FY2025
Original analysis of 13,767 records from the Federal Judicial Center, FY2006–FY2025 (federal fiscal years, October–September); employer ranking FY2021–FY2025. Published October 21, 2026.
We counted the 13,201 new disability discrimination lawsuits filed under the ADA employment code in U.S. district courts from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2025 and grouped the first-listed defendant by employer.
What the federal court records show
Walmart entities were the first-listed defendant in 216 new federal ADA employment lawsuits filed from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2025, more than any other employer and 1.6× as many as second-ranked Amazon (138). Union Pacific Railroad (86), the U.S. Postal Service (72), UPS and the Department of Veterans Affairs (67 each) and FedEx (50) followed. The counts are not adjusted for the size of each employer's workforce.
- 216New ADA employment suits naming Walmart first, FY2021–FY2025
- 138Suits naming Amazon first, the second-highest count
- 86Suits naming Union Pacific Railroad first
Walmart leads the five-year ranking
Walmart entities were named first in 216 new ADA employment suits, 1.6% of all 13,201 new suits in fiscal 2021–2025, filed in 64 federal districts.
Amazon caught up in fiscal 2025
New suits naming Amazon first rose from 19 in fiscal 2021 to 39 in fiscal 2025, the same number as Walmart that year (39).
A railroad in third place
Union Pacific Railroad was named first in 86 suits. Of these, 37 were filed in fiscal 2023 alone, 43% of its five-year total.
Delivery companies rising
Suits naming UPS first rose from 9 in fiscal 2021 to 23 in fiscal 2025; FedEx, in seventh place overall with 50 suits, went from 8 to 15.
Two federal agencies in the top five
The U.S. Postal Service (72) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (67) are the public employers named most often. Suits against them usually name the agency head.
No employer dominates
The ten most-named employers together account for 802 suits, 6.1% of all new ADA employment suits in the five years.
Which Employers Are Sued Most for Disability Discrimination
The ranking counts new ADA employment lawsuits filed in federal district courts in fiscal 2021–2025 in which the employer is the first-listed defendant.
Walmart (216), Amazon (138), Union Pacific (86), the Postal Service (72), UPS and the VA (67 each) were named first most often.
Each employer combines the name variants that appear in the court records, such as Wal-Mart Associates, Wal-Mart Stores East and Walmart Inc. for Walmart, or Amazon.com Services and Amazon.com for Amazon. We grouped by name only and did not merge companies that share an owner but carry a different name.
The ranking may reflect how many people work for each employer rather than how it treats employees with disabilities: the court data contain no measure of workforce size, so a larger employer can rank higher without a higher rate of disputes. A lawsuit is an allegation, not a finding that the employer violated the ADA.
New federal ADA employment suits by first-listed employer, FY2021–FY2025
| Employer | Suits | Share | Districts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walmart | 216 | 1.64% | 64 |
| Amazon | 138 | 1.05% | 41 |
| Union Pacific Railroad | 86 | 0.65% | 14 |
| U.S. Postal Service | 72 | 0.55% | 39 |
| Department of Veterans Affairs | 67 | 0.51% | 42 |
| UPS | 67 | 0.51% | 33 |
| FedEx | 50 | 0.38% | 26 |
| City of New York | 45 | 0.34% | 2 |
| Lowe's | 34 | 0.26% | 26 |
| Home Depot | 27 | 0.20% | 16 |
| Delta Air Lines | 26 | 0.20% | 10 |
| Department of Homeland Security | 26 | 0.20% | 16 |
| Allied Universal | 23 | 0.17% | 18 |
| AT&T | 22 | 0.17% | 10 |
| Verizon | 22 | 0.17% | 15 |
All employers with 10 or more suits
| Employer | Suits | Share | Districts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kroger | 21 | 0.16% | 13 |
| Wells Fargo | 21 | 0.16% | 16 |
| Dollar General | 20 | 0.15% | 13 |
| T-Mobile | 20 | 0.15% | 16 |
| Target | 20 | 0.15% | 12 |
| Tyson Foods | 20 | 0.15% | 15 |
| Costco | 19 | 0.14% | 16 |
| United Airlines | 18 | 0.14% | 11 |
| JPMorgan Chase | 17 | 0.13% | 12 |
| Norfolk Southern | 17 | 0.13% | 9 |
| Charter Communications | 16 | 0.12% | 13 |
| State Farm | 16 | 0.12% | 8 |
| Department of Justice | 15 | 0.11% | 12 |
| Walgreens | 15 | 0.11% | 13 |
| Amtrak | 14 | 0.11% | 5 |
| AutoZone | 14 | 0.11% | 12 |
| General Motors | 14 | 0.11% | 7 |
| CSX Transportation | 13 | 0.10% | 8 |
| CVS | 13 | 0.10% | 10 |
| Children's Hospital of Philadelphia | 13 | 0.10% | 2 |
| City of Philadelphia | 13 | 0.10% | 1 |
| Comcast | 13 | 0.10% | 8 |
| Department of the Army | 13 | 0.10% | 11 |
| University of Miami | 13 | 0.10% | 9 |
| BNSF Railway | 12 | 0.09% | 10 |
| Department of Defense | 12 | 0.09% | 8 |
| Department of the Treasury | 12 | 0.09% | 10 |
| Exel Inc. | 11 | 0.08% | 6 |
| Ford Motor | 11 | 0.08% | 5 |
| Kaiser Permanente | 11 | 0.08% | 5 |
| Starbucks | 11 | 0.08% | 8 |
| American Airlines | 10 | 0.08% | 7 |
| Chicago Transit Authority | 10 | 0.08% | 1 |
| Dollar Tree | 10 | 0.08% | 8 |
| NYU Langone | 10 | 0.08% | 3 |
| Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals | 10 | 0.08% | 3 |
Suits = new ADA employment suits (original filings and removals from state court) naming the employer first. Share = suits divided by all 13,201 new ADA employment suits. Districts = federal judicial districts in which those suits were filed. Employers with at least 10 suits are listed.
Is Walmart Sued for Disability Discrimination Every Year
Walmart had the highest count in each fiscal year from 2021 through 2024; in fiscal 2025 Amazon matched it.
Walmart was named first in 39 new ADA employment suits in fiscal 2025, Amazon in 39, UPS in 23.
Yearly counts for single employers are small, so a change of a few suits from one year to the next does not by itself indicate a trend. Union Pacific is the exception in size: 37 suits in fiscal 2023, against 5 in fiscal 2024. The court data do not show why suits against the railroad clustered in that year.
The chart shows the five-year total; the CSV has each fiscal year for the 10 most frequently named employers.
New ADA employment suits by first-listed employer, FY2021–FY2025 total and selected years
- Walmart21643 in FY2021 · 57 in FY2023 · 39 in FY2025
- Amazon13819 in FY2021 · 26 in FY2023 · 39 in FY2025
- Union Pacific Railroad8613 in FY2021 · 37 in FY2023 · 22 in FY2025
- U.S. Postal Service7221 in FY2021 · 9 in FY2023 · 9 in FY2025
- Department of Veterans Affairs6717 in FY2021 · 10 in FY2023 · 5 in FY2025
- UPS679 in FY2021 · 13 in FY2023 · 23 in FY2025
- FedEx508 in FY2021 · 6 in FY2023 · 15 in FY2025
- City of New York457 in FY2021 · 5 in FY2023 · 10 in FY2025
- Lowe's346 in FY2021 · 9 in FY2023 · 6 in FY2025
- Home Depot275 in FY2021 · 2 in FY2023 · 10 in FY2025
Fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30; fiscal 2025 ended September 30, 2025.
How Many ADA Employment Lawsuits Are Filed Each Year
Federal ADA employment filings reached 3,427 in fiscal 2025, 3.5× the 985 of fiscal 2006.
Federal courts recorded 3,427 ADA employment cases in fiscal 2025, up 61.7% from 2,120 in fiscal 2022, the lowest count since fiscal 2015.
The number of ADA employment cases commenced rose in each of the last three fiscal years, from 2,120 in fiscal 2022 to 2,568, 3,023 and 3,427. The court data do not explain the changes.
Cases commenced include reopened, remanded and transferred cases, the way the federal judiciary counts them; new suits count original filings and removals once per docket.
Federal ADA employment cases commenced per fiscal year
- 2006985968 new suits
- 20071,0361,003 new suits
- 20081,0941,057 new suits
- 20091,1981,155 new suits
- 20101,5201,455 new suits
- 20111,7671,719 new suits
- 20121,9601,920 new suits
- 20131,9451,898 new suits
- 20141,8951,849 new suits
- 20152,0721,992 new suits
- 20162,2322,176 new suits
- 20172,3662,261 new suits
- 20182,6302,517 new suits
- 20192,5632,455 new suits
- 20202,3472,229 new suits
All fiscal years
- 20212,6292,547 new suits
- 20222,1202,009 new suits
- 20232,5682,459 new suits
- 20243,0232,905 new suits
- 20253,4273,281 new suits
Fiscal 2026 is incomplete in the current data release and is not shown.
Download the Data and Cite This Study
Every table as a CSV file and in one Excel workbook, a short PDF summary and every chart as an image, free to reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0).
- ADA employment lawsuits by named employer defendant, FY2021–FY2025Employers named as first defendant in at least 10 new federal ADA employment cases (nature of suit 445) filed October 2020 through September 2025, with share of all new ADA employment suits and number of districts. · 51 rows · CSV, 2 KB
- Federal ADA employment lawsuits filed per fiscal year, FY2006–FY2025ADA employment cases (nature of suit 445) commenced per federal fiscal year (all origins, as in Judicial Business Table C-2), and new suits (original filings and removals, one per docket). · 20 rows · CSV, 1 KB
- ADA employment lawsuits against the ten most-named employers, by fiscal yearNew federal ADA employment suits per fiscal year, FY2021–FY2025, for the ten employers named most often as first defendant. · 10 rows · CSV, 1 KB
- All tables in one Excel workbookOne sheet per table plus an About sheet with sources, method and citation · Excel (.xlsx), 14 KB
- Summary to print or forward (3 pages)Short answer, key figures, main chart, findings, method and citation · PDF, 233 KB
Charts for your story
New federal ADA employment suits by first-listed employer, FY2021–FY2025
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New ADA employment suits by first-listed employer, FY2021–FY2025 total and selected years
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Federal ADA employment cases commenced per fiscal year
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How to cite
Goldberg, L. (2026). Employers in federal ADA employment lawsuits — new suits by first-listed employer (FY2021–FY2025) [Data set]. Settlement Insight. https://settlementinsight.com/research/most-sued-employers-ada-disability-discrimination
BibTeX
@dataset{goldberg_2026_most_sued_employers_ada_disability_discrimination,
author = {Goldberg, Leonard},
title = {Employers in federal ADA employment lawsuits --- new suits by first-listed employer (FY2021--FY2025)},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Settlement Insight},
url = {https://settlementinsight.com/research/most-sued-employers-ada-disability-discrimination}
}How We Measured
Checked against published figures
- Federal civil cases commenced under nature of suit ADA–Employment (445), fiscal year 2025 (12 months ending September 30, 2025): published 3,422, our count 3,427 (0.15% apart).Table C-2. U.S. District Courts, Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit, During the 12-Month Periods Ending September 30, 2024 and 2025 (Judicial Business 2025)
- Federal civil cases commenced under nature of suit ADA–Employment (445), fiscal year 2024 (12 months ending September 30, 2024): published 3,018, our count 3,023 (0.17% apart).Table C-2. U.S. District Courts, Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit, During the 12-Month Periods Ending September 30, 2024 and 2025 (Judicial Business 2025)
Full method and limits of the data
We selected cases with nature-of-suit code 445 (Americans with Disabilities Act – Employment) by IDB filing date, using federal fiscal years (October 1 to September 30). Counting every case commenced, as the judiciary does, gives 3,427 cases for fiscal 2025 and 3,023 for fiscal 2024, within 0.15% and 0.17% of the totals in the judiciary's Judicial Business Table C-2.
For the employer ranking we kept only new suits filed from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2025: original proceedings and cases removed from state court. Remanded, reopened and transferred cases were dropped so that a dispute is not counted twice, and where the same docket number appears more than once in the same district and office we kept the earliest filing (10 duplicates). In total 566 of 13,767 records were set aside, leaving 13,201 new suits, the denominator of every share.
The IDB records only the first-listed defendant, shortened to about thirty characters. We converted names to upper case, removed apostrophes, punctuation, "et al." and legal-form words (Inc., LLC, L.P., P.C., PLLC, Corp., Corporation, Co., Company, Ltd., N.A., The), and assigned a name to an employer when it begins with that employer's distinctive name or a recorded alias. Most aliases are spelling variants (Wal-Mart or Walmart, FedEx or Federal Express, including FedEx Ground). Aliases that do not start with the brand: Dolgencorp for Dollar General, Universal Protection Service for Allied Universal, Cellco Partnership for Verizon, National Railroad Passenger for Amtrak, Burlington Northern for BNSF. City of New York includes suits naming a New York City department. Lowes Foods, Spectrum entities other than Spectrum/Charter, and Miami-Dade school board suits were kept apart.
Suits by federal employees usually name the head of the agency, and the IDB then holds only a surname. We assigned DeJoy and Steiner to the U.S. Postal Service, McDonough, Wilkie and Collins to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Mayorkas, Noem and Wolf to Homeland Security, Wormuth and Driscoll to the Army, Austin and Hegseth to Defense, Garland, Barr and Bondi to Justice, Kendall to the Air Force, and Yellen, Bessent and Mnuchin to the Treasury, along with suits naming the agency itself. Surnames shared with many private persons (Steiner, Collins, Wolf, Driscoll, Austin, Garland, Barr, Kendall) count only when the court coded the United States as defendant.
The ranking lists every employer named first in at least 10 new suits; the ranking CSV has the full list. We checked that no unassigned name, after normalization, reaches that threshold.
What this data cannot tell you
- Only the first-listed defendant is recorded. A suit that names a manager or a staffing agency first and the employer second is not counted for the employer, and the defendant is not always the plaintiff's employer.
- Employers are grouped by name, not by corporate ownership. Subsidiaries with a different name, such as Sam's Club or Family Dollar, are not added to their parent.
- The ADA's definition of employer excludes the United States; disability discrimination in federal jobs falls under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act. Suits against federal agencies are counted only where the court coded them as ADA employment cases, so the federal counts are not complete.
- Counts are not adjusted for the number of employees or locations. A lawsuit is an allegation, not a finding that the employer violated the law.
- The IDB does not show which ADA claim a suit raised (for example failure to accommodate or discharge), or which other claims were joined.
- Courts report cases to the federal judiciary with a delay, and later IDB releases can add or correct records for recent years. Fiscal 2025 counts may change slightly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which company is sued the most for disability discrimination?
Walmart entities were the first-listed defendant in 216 new federal ADA employment lawsuits from fiscal 2021 through fiscal 2025, more than any other employer. Amazon followed with 138 and Union Pacific Railroad with 86.
How many disability discrimination lawsuits has Walmart faced?
Federal court records list a Walmart entity first in 216 new ADA employment suits filed from October 2020 through September 2025, in 64 federal districts. Suits that name Walmart as a later defendant, and state-court suits that stayed in state court, are not included.
How many ADA lawsuits has FedEx faced?
FedEx entities, including FedEx Ground and Federal Express, were named first in 50 new federal ADA employment suits in fiscal 2021–2025, seventh among all employers. The yearly count rose from 8 in fiscal 2021 to 15 in fiscal 2025.
How many ADA lawsuits has Amazon faced?
Amazon entities were named first in 138 new federal ADA employment suits in fiscal 2021–2025, second to Walmart. In fiscal 2025 alone the count was 39.
How many ADA employment lawsuits are filed each year?
Federal district courts recorded 3,427 ADA employment cases in fiscal 2025, counting reopened and transferred cases. Of these, 3,281 were new suits.
Which employers are covered by the ADA?
Title I of the ADA applies to employers with 15 or more employees. The federal government is excluded from the ADA's definition of employer; federal employees' disability claims fall under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Sources
- Integrated Database (IDB): civil cases — Federal Judicial Center
- IDB Civil Codebook, 1988 forward — Federal Judicial Center
- The Integrated Database: A Research Guide — Federal Judicial Center
- Judicial Business 2025, Table C-2: Civil Cases Commenced, by Basis of Jurisdiction and Nature of Suit — Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
- Titles I and V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 — U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- EEOC Disability-Related Resources — U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Independent analysis. Settlement Insight is not a law firm and not affiliated with any agency named here. Analysis by Leonard Goldberg, Editor. How we work: methodology, our data.
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