As Disney, Starbucks and other prominent employers curb work from home (WFH) arrangements, a former Roc Nation employee is suing the entertainment agency over a WFH denial.

Ata Movassaghi, who directed digital marketing and strategy for Roc Nation’s sports division in Manhattan from 2018 to 2021, filed an Americans with Disabilities (ADA) and Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) complaint in the Southern District of New York last Friday. He seeks monetary damages reflecting economic losses, emotional distress, harm to career and harm to reputation. Christopher Lenzo, an attorney at the employment law firm Lenzo & Reis, represents Movassaghi.

The complaint depicts Movassaghi as a superb employee who repeatedly earned excellent performance reviews and a substantial raise. Like most Americans, Movassaghi began to work from home when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020. A few months later, Movassaghi’s father was diagnosed with a severe heart condition and cancer, and he had to be hospitalized. Movassaghi asked for, and was granted, a WFH arrangement for the summer to help to care for his dad.

By September 2020, Roc Nation’s Manhattan employees had returned to the office. That month Movassaghi asked a superior to extend his WFH arrangement. He explained that “being forced to return to the office in the highly infected New York City would present a serious risk of him contracting COVID-19 and passing it to his very vulnerable father.” At the time, the dad was still in...

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