SHRM, the HR membership organization that calls itself “the trusted authority on all things work,” lost its second employment-related jury trial in under a year on Friday, after a jury returned a verdict finding SHRM violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Virginia Human Rights Act when it refused to allow a former applicant to bring a service dog to work as an accommodation.
The jury awarded the plaintiff in the case $400,000 in compensatory damages and no punitive damages.
The plaintiff in Torres v. Society for Human Resource Management alleged she had been offered a role as a senior specialist in the product management department in June 2024, but that SHRM had refused to allow her to bring her service dog on-site as a reasonable accommodation to help her manage her Type 1 diabetes.
While SHRM did allow certain accommodations, such as use of a continuous glucose monitor and food and drink at her desk, the applicant argued in court documents that these would not be sufficient.
Life-threatening hypoglycemic episodes — characterized by sudden loss of consciousness — “were uniformly caused by sudden blood glucose level changes that mechanical monitors could not detect in time,” the plaintiff argued in her December 2025 complaint.
The jury found SHRM ran afoul of the law by rescinding the applicant’s job offer because of its need to accommodate her disability, failing to provide her a reasonable accommodation, and, under the VHRA, discriminating against her on the basis of her disability. It also sided with SHRM on a few claims, finding the organization did not rescind the job offer due to the applicant’s disability alone and did not fail to engage in the interactive process.
“The law requires employers to look seriously at an employee’s actual needs when an accommodation is requested,” Mary Kuntz, lead attorney for the plaintiff and a partner at Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, said in a news release. “This obligation applies to every employer, including the organization so many others rely on for guidance on these questions.”
In a statement provided to HR Dive, Kuntz also said that “SHRM demonstrated no hardship at all and provided no accommodation that would meet [the plaintiff’s] need for advanced alerts. The jury saw this and held them responsible.”
SHRM strongly decried the decision in a statement released Saturday and said it would “evaluate all reasonable appellate options.”
“Accommodation is meant to be a dialogue, not a dictation,” SHRM said. “The Americans with Disabilities Act requires cooperation from both sides. An applicant's preference for one specific accommodation does not strip an employer of its right to establish reasonable operational boundaries or to propose alternative, effective solutions.”
SHRM also pushed back against the need for the service dog, noting it was not prescribed by a doctor and that the plaintiff is occasionally separated from the dog for things like exercise or travel.
The HR organization also suggested the case’s outcome would have broader implications for employers. “If today’s verdict becomes precedent for the principle that an employer must always capitulate to an employee’s exact preferred accommodation, the interactive process the ADA was built around ceases to function,” it said.
KCNF Managing Partner Elaine Fitch vowed the law firm would “vigorously defend” the verdict if SHRM chooses to appeal.
The loss is a blow to an organization that has experienced an unstable few years. SHRM is already on the hook for $11.5 million after a trial ending last December in which a jury found the organization had subjected a former employee to racial discrimination and retaliation (Muhamed v. SHRM). In an August appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court, SHRM asked to have a district court’s denial of a new trial reversed, or, alternatively, to “significantly” reduce the amount it owed the plaintiff in damages.
In July, SHRM’s liability insurance provider also filed a lawsuit against the organization, saying it would not cover the millions SHRM owed in punitive damages.
Beyond litigation, SHRM has spent the past couple years making big changes to its conferences and approach. In summer 2025, the organization announced its annual inclusion conference would change to “SHRM Blueprint,” although it said at the time the move did not represent a retreat from the value of inclusion. The event, now “Blueprint for I&D,” is now folded into a larger, three-pillar event called “All Things Work.”
SHRM also recently overhauled its annual conference to rebrand it as a “credentialing academy.”
SHRM offered no further comment on the trial outcome to HR Dive beyond its Saturday statement.
