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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has reached a $25,000 settlement in a disability discrimination lawsuit it filed against a grocery store chain charging the company with illegally asking applicants for health information and terminating a worker who had suffered an epileptic seizure.
The EEOC on Wednesday said Guilford, Conn.-based Food Farmacy Ltd. and J&T Enterprises L.L.C., which does business as Foodworks, had asked disability-related questions to a class of job applicants before offering them jobs, including whether they had any health problems, whether they took any medications and, if so, which ones.
Furthermore, the EEOC said Foodworks terminated an employee in one of its stores a few days after he had an epileptic seizure at work, despite the employee having performed his job successfully and presenting medical documentation indicating he was capable of returning to his normal workday.
Foodworks was charged by the EEOC with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In addition to paying the $25,000 to the terminated employee, the four-year consent decree resolving the lawsuit prohibits Foodworks from asking job applicants preoffer disability-related questions and prohibits it from firing employees because of their disability or perceived disability, among other provisions.
“This settlement should remind employers that the ADA prohibits employers from asking applicants disability-related inquiries before offering them jobs,” said EEOC New York district director Kevin Berry in a statement.
“When employers take measures to ensure that such inquiries are not made of applicants before making job offers, and that the job selection process is based on nondiscriminatory factors, we all win.”
Foodworks’ attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.