Blank Changing one's schedule like this, even though it appeared as a minimal
change, for
somebody with Down's Syndrome, the accommodation should have been made.
Walmart Loses Suit on Firing Of Employee With Disability. By Michael Levenson.
Walmart said the verdict would be reduced to $300,000, which is the maximum
amount allowed
under federal law for compensatory and punitive damages.
Marlo Spaeth started working as a sales associate at a Walmart in Manitowoc,
Wis., in 1999,
folding towels, cleaning aisles, processing returns and greeting customers, her
lawyers
said. Over the next 15 years, she received several pay raises and positive
performance
reviews.. One manager wrote that she was 'great with customers' and a 'very
hard worker.
Another manager wrote, 'Marlo is a very friendly person and is a delight to
have working
here. But Ms. Spaeth's hours suddenly shifted in November 2014, when Walmart
instituted a
computerized scheduling system, which the company said was based on customer
traffic and was
designed to ensure that enough people were working when the store was busiest.
Ms. Spaeth
was expected to work from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., rather than her previous
schedule of noon to
4 p.m., her lawyers said. The abrupt change represented a significant hardship
for Ms.
Spaeth, who has Down syndrome and thrives on routine, her lawyers said. Ms.
Spaeth
repeatedly told a manager that she wanted her old schedule back, her lawyers
said. 'She's
afraid she's going to miss the bus,' her sister and guardian, Amy Jo Stevenson,
said she had
told a Walmart manager, according to court records. 'She's afraid she's going
to miss
dinner. It's upsetting to her. She gets too hot. She says she feels sick, and
she can't
accommodate it, so we need it switched back for her. But the company refused to
switch Ms.
Spaeth back to her old schedule at the store, which was open 24 hours a day and
had more
than 300 employees, her lawyers said. Walmart then took disciplinary action
against Ms.
Spaeth twice for absenteeism and tardiness, her lawyers said. On July 10, 2015,
Walmart
fired Ms. Spaeth for excessive absenteeism. A Walmart training coordinator took
Ms. Spaeth's
vest and walked her out of the store where she had worked for about 16 years.
The training
coordinator later testified that both she and Ms. Spaeth had been crying and
that Ms. Spaeth
had not understood what was happening, court records show. Ms. Spaeth and her
mother and
sister met with Walmart managers and asked that she be rehired and allowed to
return to her
old schedule, her lawyers said. But Walmart refused to rehire her, even though
her
termination letter said she could be hired again, her lawyers said. On
Thursday, a jury in
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, in Green Bay, found
that Walmart
had violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, which bans discrimination
based on an
employee's disability, and awarded Ms. Spaeth $125 million in punitive damages
and $150,000
in compensatory damages. The jury, which deliberated for three hours after a
four-day trial,
found that Walmart had failed to provide Ms. Spaeth with a reasonable
accommodation, even
though she needed one because she has Down syndrome and it would not have posed
a hardship
to the company. The jury also found that Walmart had fired Ms. Spaeth and then
failed to
rehire her because she has a disability. 'The jury here recognized, and
apparently was quite
offended, that Ms. Spaeth lost her job because of needless -- and unlawful --
inflexibility
on the part of Walmart,' said Gregory Gochanour, a lawyer with the Equal
Employment
Opportunity Commission, which had sued Walmart on behalf of Ms. Spaeth. Walmart
said in a
statement that the verdict would be reduced to $300,000, which is the maximum
amount allowed
under federal law for compensatory and punitive damages. 'We do not tolerate
discrimination
of any kind, and we routinely accommodate thousands of associates every year,'
Walmart said.
'We often adjust associate schedules to meet our customers' expectations and
while Ms.
Spaeth's schedule was adjusted, it remained within the times she indicated she
was
available. The company said that it was 'sensitive to this situation and
believe we could
have resolved this issue with Ms. Spaeth. It added, 'However, the E.E.O.C.'s
demands were
unreasonable. An E.E.O.C. lawyer declined to comment, but the agency's website
notes that
compensatory and punitive damages are capped at $300,000 for employers with
more 500
workers. Walmart, which employs more than 2.3 million people around the world,
is the
nation's largest private employer, with more than 1.6 million employees in the
United
States, according to its website. Julianne Bowman, the Chicago district
director at the
E.E.O.C., said employers, no matter how large, had an obligation under the law
to evaluate
the individual circumstances of employees with disabilities when considering
requests for
reasonable accommodations. 'Ms. Spaeth's request was a simple one and denying
it profoundly
altered her life,' Ms. Bowman said in a statement. Dr. David Smith, a former
program
director at the Down Syndrome Clinic of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said in court
papers that
people with Down syndrome need routines to manage their day and may not have
the cognitive
ability to adjust well to changes. When Walmart changed Ms. Spaeth's schedule,
the stress of
the change and the pressure she felt to adapt to her new hours may have thrown
her off, he
said. People with Down syndrome 'make very good employees if they have the
right job and an
understanding employer,' said Dr. Smith, who was an expert witness for the
E.E.O.C. 'Their
job becomes a major focus of their life, and gives them a sense of self-worth,'
he said.
'When Ms. Spaeth's schedule was changed, she was unable to adapt to that
variation. PHOTO: A
federal jury found that Walmart had failed to provide a reasonable
accommodation to a former
worker who has Down syndrome even though she needed one and it would not have
posed a
hardship to the company.