Disability Law
Wal-Mart to Pay $250K Settlement for Firing Worker Disabled in Shooting
Posted Jun 10, 2008, 10:51 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Wal-Mart will pay $250,000 to settle a claim that it violated federal disability law when it fired a pharmacy technician who was injured in a shooting.
The employee, Glenda Allen, was working at Wal-Mart in Maryland in 1994 when she was shot in a robbery attempt at a different job, according to a press release issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After the shooting she had to walk with a cane.
Allen continued working as a Wal-Mart pharmacy technician until she got a new manager who refused to accommodate her injuries, the Baltimore Sun reports. The company told Allen in 2003 that she was being demoted to a door greeter, said Allen’s lawyer, Maria Salacuse. Allen refused the demotion and was fired.
Wal-Mart settled the suit filed by the EEOC after a Baltimore federal judge refused the company’s motion to dismiss the case. The settlement is the second time that Wal-Mart has settled an EEOC case this year based on violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.