Employee fired for needing accommodations at work after stroke, court records say
Six weeks after a worker was hospitalized after a stroke in 2019, he was fired from his job as a field service technician at Cash Depot in Texas for needing accommodations, federal officials say.
Nearly five years later, Cash Depot is set to pay the man $55,000 after settling a case with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, court records show.
Cash Depot’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment by McClatchy News on Jan. 17.
According to a complaint filed by the EEOC in 2020, the worker suffered a stroke in February 2019 and was hospitalized for four days. When he returned to work on March 6, 2019, he provided Cash Depot with a doctor’s note that said “his only limitation was driving,” the EEOC said.
Cash Depot made a job posting for his role online that same day, court records said. The worker was placed on leave from March 13 to April 3, 2019.
The company told him his job would “be held open for him” while he was on leave but said it could not guarantee it “would remain open if he were unable to return to work by that date” or shortly after, the lawsuit said.
The day before the employee was set to return to work in April, Cash Depot offered his position to another candidate, who accepted, the complaint said. On April 3, the worker gave Cash Depot a doctor’s note documenting “a lifting, pushing and pulling limitation of 25 lbs,” the lawsuit said.
The man was fired and was told he needed to be “100% recovered with no restrictions and no needed accommodations in order to return to work,” court records said.
In addition to the $55,000 in back pay and damages, Cash Depot is required to revise its anti-discrimination policies and train managers and human resources on the Americans with Disabilities Act’s rules on disability discrimination, retaliation and reasonable accommodation, according to the consent decree.
“The ADA clearly protects individuals from employment discrimination because of disability,” EEOC regional attorney Rudy Sustaita said in a news release. “It also requires employers to engage in the interactive process with an employee to determine if a reasonable accommodation will allow the employee to perform their job. When this all-important federal law is not observed, the EEOC will enforce it when it must.”
Cash Depot is a privately owned ATM service provider headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, according to the EEOC.
This story was originally published January 17, 2024 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Employee fired for needing accommodations at work after stroke, court records say."
