She was caring for her dying mother when the return-to-duty letter arrived
A federal court sided with the U.S. Postal Service after a manager claimed her FMLA leave was disrupted and her career derailed by age discrimination.
On April 23, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia entered judgment against Ella Vick, a former Manager of Distribution Operations at the Postal Service's Curseen Morris Processing and Distribution Center in Washington, D.C. The ruling disposed of Vick's remaining claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act, after a jury had already found in favor of the Postal Service on her Title VII claims following a six-day trial in August 2022.
The facts of the case read like a cautionary tale about what happens when internal communication breaks down during an employee's protected leave – and how documentation, or the lack of it, can shape the outcome of an employment dispute for years.
Vick, born in 1956, was one of four managers of distribution operations at the Curseen Morris plant. In fiscal year 2011, her supervisor, Plant Manager Wendy McLlwain, rated her performance as "Non-Contributor" – a rating that carried no pay increase – based on productivity data, direct observations, and Vick's struggles to hold her team accountable. No co-worker or supervisor, apart from Vick herself, testified at trial that she performed her job well.
That rating became consequential. When the Postal Service...
Pakistani actress and model Ayesha Omar has strongly denied a controversial statement falsely attributed to her on social media. In recent days, a statement circulated online claiming that the act...