Whatever the actual reason for firing an employee, the written explanation becomes evidence. A Mississippi restaurant is about to find out what that means.
TL;DR: The EEOC has sued a Mississippi restaurant under the Americans with Disabilities Act, alleging it fired an employee with a seizure condition just days after learning she had experienced a seizure — and documented the reason in the termination letter.
đź“„ Read the EEOC press release
A Termination Letter That Speaks for Itself
The employee had been upfront from day one. When she was hired at a Mississippi restaurant in October 2022, she disclosed her seizure condition to her employer and told them she hadn’t had one in years. She wasn’t hiding anything. She wasn’t asking for anything. She just wanted her employer to know.
For months, that transparency didn’t cost her anything.
Then she had a seizure. The restaurant learned about it on or around January 26, 2023. Nine days later, on February 4, it fired her. The termination letter gave her a reason: she should “focus more on her health.”
That sentence could end up being exhibit A.
These are the allegations from a recently filed EEOC complaint. A court hasn’t weighed in yet. What the EEOC is alleging, though, is hard to explain away.
Termination Timing and Termination Letters
Two things make this case difficult for the employer before it even answers the complaint.
The first is timing. A nine-day gap between learning about a medical event and issuing a termination is the kind of sequence that makes summary judgment very hard to win. Courts and juries notice it. Employers need a compelling, well-documented, pre-existing reason to overcome that kind of proximity — and nothing in the complaint suggests one exists here.
The second is the letter. Telling an employee to “focus on her health” as the stated basis for termination doesn’t read as a neutral business decision. It reads as an acknowledgment that the employer was thinking about her medical condition when it pulled the trigger.
The same paternalistic and materialistic logic surfaces in pregnancy discrimination cases. Employers who sideline or terminate pregnant employees — particularly those in physically demanding roles — on the theory that they are protecting the employee or her unborn child have fared poorly under federal law. The EEOC has been consistent: the decision about whether to keep working belongs to the employee, not the employer. Telling someone to “focus on her health” is not a business justification. It is an admission that the employer substituted its own judgment for the employee’s — and the law does not permit that trade.
What Employers Should Do Differently
Document performance and conduct issues in real time. Pre-existing performance problems that appear on paper for the first time after an employer learns about a disability have a credibility problem. Juries are good at math.
Review termination letters before they go out. No termination letter should reference an employee’s health, medical condition, or need to “take care of themselves” as a reason for separation. Those phrases don’t read as kindness. They read as admissions.
Remember that disclosure doesn’t diminish protection. There is nothing easy about telling your employer you have a seizure condition. Employees who make that disclosure are choosing vulnerability over self-protection. The ADA’s promise is that vulnerability won’t be weaponized against them.
This case is in its earliest stages and the allegations are unproven. But the EEOC doesn’t file cases it doesn’t expect to win, and this one comes with receipts.