A blind customer care advocate asked for screen reading software. According to the EEOC, his employer tested two products, decided the software wasn’t compatible, turned down a free offer from a state agency to help, and terminated him. That sequence cost $270,000.
According to the EEOC, the company’s own doctors cleared two employees as fit for duty. The employer allegedly refused to let them return anyway, unless they switched the medications treating their disabilities. That decision cost $300,000.
The employer granted a dispatcher’s telework accommodation, watched her work successfully from home for nearly three years, then yanked it without ever talking to her according to the EEOC. That sequence cost $280,000.
According to the EEOC, a $2 billion company said it couldn’t afford $1,700 hearing protection for an employee losing her hearing on the job. A federal lawsuit and a $100,000 settlement later, that calculus looks different.
She showed up to work one morning, scanned her badge, and nothing happened. That’s allegedly how a 10-year employee learned she’d been fired while undergoing chemotherapy. Continue reading
A law firm partner apparently missed every harassment training ever offered and made a comment that belongs in a museum of worst-possible workplace decisions. The firm’s response, though, was textbook. The case got dismissed.
The termination decision-maker didn’t know about the complaint. That gap cost the employee everything.
The $11.5 million verdict against SHRM survived. Now the court’s explanation of why offers a sharper lesson than the verdict itself.
An employee told Social Security it was “impossible” for him to work, then filed an ADA lawsuit claiming he could perform his job with accommodations. The court tossed it on summary judgment. Continue reading
An employee returned from his third round of FMLA leave and found a performance improvement plan waiting for him. That looks terrible. But a jury will never hear about it.
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