AT&T Entities' Late Disclosure Unlocks New Defendants in Tennessee Disability-Leave Suit

NASHVILLE (LN) — A federal judge ruled that three former BellSouth Telecommunications workers may add AT&T Mobility and AT&T Services as defendants in their disability and family-leave lawsuit, holding that BellSouth's own belated disclosure — not any dilatory motive by the plaintiffs — explained why the amendment came more than a year into the case.

Keyonna Bryant, Temeka Davis, and Dana DeMoss sued BellSouth in June 2024, alleging the company wrongfully laid them off in June 2023 and then mishandled their attempts to return to work, in violation of the FMLA, the ADA, and the Tennessee Disability Act. For more than a year, BellSouth's answers and initial disclosures identified only BellSouth employees as persons with relevant knowledge and made no mention of AT&T Services or AT&T Mobility by name.

That changed in October 2025, when BellSouth moved to amend its own answer and, without flagging the significance, revealed that Bryant's collections-department job offer had been made and rescinded by AT&T Services — not BellSouth — and that DeMoss had accepted and then resigned from a position with AT&T Mobility. BellSouth's amended initial disclosures, identifying witnesses with knowledge of those facts, followed on December 2, 2025, one day after BellSouth filed its opposition to the plaintiffs' amendment motion.

U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger found the timing dispositive on the delay question. The court was persuaded that the plaintiffs' failure to amend sooner was not the product of undue delay or a dilatory motive, writing that BellSouth was "at least equally at fault for the parties' failure to clarify, at an earlier date, the identity of the entities that hired Bryant and DeMoss after their lay-offs."

The plaintiffs' own declarations reinforced that conclusion. Bryant stated that her personnel record showed her job offer was rescinded "due to previous warning on employee's record" tied to a 2022 write-up, and that she believed she had worked for BellSouth throughout, including during the few hours she spent in the collections role. DeMoss stated that her vacation and sick leave carried over to the new position, that she used the same HR department and the same AT&T job portal — HR OneStep — and that her I-9 and W-2 forms followed her to the new job. Davis said she had "no idea" why BellSouth claimed she worked for any other employer.

On prejudice, Trauger noted that fact discovery deadlines remained months away when the plaintiffs moved to amend, and she declined to penalize the plaintiffs for any schedule slippage caused by the court's own caseload. On futility, she acknowledged the proposed second amended complaint did not plead specific, concrete facts supporting an integrated enterprise theory, but held the theory adequately stated to survive a motion to dismiss, particularly given that the parties' own confusion about which AT&T entity employed whom "somewhat substantiates" the theory. The burden of establishing futility, she noted, rests on the party opposing amendment.

Trauger also rejected BellSouth's request that the plaintiffs be required to replead with entity-specific attribution for each adverse action, finding the factual allegations already made clear which entity took which action against which plaintiff. Under the ruling, Bryant's claims will proceed against BellSouth and AT&T Services; DeMoss's against BellSouth and AT&T Mobility; and Davis's against BellSouth alone.

The grant of leave rendered moot BellSouth's own pending motion to amend its answer.

The three plaintiffs' claims are set for separate trials — only Bryant's trial date has been scheduled — after Trauger granted in part BellSouth's earlier motion to sever.