Court Denies Summary Judgment in ADA Case Over Employee Aggregation Dispute

Plaintiff Heath Campbell, a former plumber for Skyward LLC, sued the company and Aqua Systems Alabama LLC under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Campbell alleged that Skyward terminated him due to ongoing health conditions in violation of the ADA.

The defendants moved for summary judgment on the narrow ground that Skyward did not have enough employees to qualify as an "employer" under the ADA, and that Skyward and Aqua Systems are not a single or integrated employer.

The court denied the motion as to Skyward after the company stipulated at oral argument that a factual dispute existed regarding its own headcount. Skyward identified an additional week in which payroll records showed 15 employees, creating a genuine dispute over whether it met the ADA's threshold of 15 or more employees for each working day in 20 or more calendar weeks.

The court then turned to whether Skyward and Aqua Systems should be treated as a single employer under the Eleventh Circuit's "integrated enterprise" test. The two companies are owned by different Sims family members—Chris Sims owns a majority interest in Skyward, while his wife Tonja Sims owns Aqua Systems—but they share significant operational overlap.

Chris Sims serves as president of both companies and oversees their financial operations, hiring decisions, and wage-setting. He also has the authority to sign contracts for both entities and maintains final say over expenditures.

The companies share management functions through Amy Parrish, Aqua Systems's accounting and human resources manager, who also acted as a personal assistant to Chris Sims. Parrish handled payroll information for Skyward employees, completed Campbell's eligibility and I-9 forms, and facilitated his return to work following a health episode.

Financially, the companies maintain separate bank accounts and accounting records but have interrelated operations. Aqua Systems provides loans to Skyward, which Sims estimates at $300,000. Aqua Systems also issues credit cards to Skyward employees for vehicle expenses and allows at least one Skyward employee to work out of Aqua Systems's Pelham office without paying rent.

Additionally, Skyward plumbers were taught to sell and install Aqua Systems water purification systems, with instructions to exclusively install those products. The companies also jointly participated in Campbell's EEOC charge and mediation, with Aqua Systems employees drafting responses and attending proceedings on behalf of Skyward.

The court did not find that the entities are an integrated enterprise. However, because there is evidence supporting each of the four integrated enterprise factors—interrelation of operations, centralized control of labor relations, common management, and common ownership or financial control—the court determined that a genuine dispute of material fact exists. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the plaintiff on whether the two companies constitute a single employer.

The defendants' motion for summary judgment is denied, allowing Campbell's ADA claim to proceed on the basis that Skyward and Aqua Systems may be aggregated for employee-count purposes.