Another example of the dysfunctional lawsuit system in the US going awry. Walmart fired an employee with Down syndrome who worked there for 16 years. A jury said it should pay her $125 million. A federal jury determined that Walmart violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it fired an employee with Down syndrome following issues related to her work schedule. After a four-day trial in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the jury awarded Marlo Spaeth $125 million in damages. Before her termination, Spaeth worked at Walmart for about 16 years. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission represented Spaeth, presenting evidence on three claims of disability discrimination against Walmart. The commission said that a change to Spaeth's previously consistent schedule caused her "significant difficulty" and that Walmart denied her request to revert to the prior work schedule through 60- to 90-minute adjustments. Instead, she was fired. A Walmart spokesperson said the verdict was expected to be reduced to $300,000, which is the maximum amount allowed under federal law. Walmart fired an employee with Down syndrome who worked there for 16 years. A jury said it should pay her $125 million. (msn.com) Even $300,000 is grossly excessive. A typical worker at Walmart earns about $25,000 per year. I know we can have sympathy for this disabled woman, but if this woman had too much difficulty working the normal work schedule due to her disability, and the employer would not continue to make adjustments for her, does she really deserve 12 times her yearly salary as compensation? One could ask whether the company should even have had a legal obligation. Won't this type of thing just make companies more reluctant and afraid to hire protected classes of workers? Because later if the company has to fire those workers they will get sued. It seems many members of the public just see Walmart as a gigantic corporation with lots of money, and some of these lawsuits seem more about "social justice" (taking from a big rich company to give to one of the little people) than actual fairness based on the alleged issue in question. This type of thing is going to make it very difficult for businesses to operate in this type of legal environment. Actually I believe it's an understatement to say that. This type of thing seems like something out of the film Idiocracy (2006). Probably says a lot about the average member of the American public as well.
. Walmart corporate would have known better than to fire her. The errant employee who fired her may also be out of a job. .
I'm all for companies trying to go out of their way to make accommodations for the disabled, but at what point does it become unreasonable to require a company to make a certain type of accommodation? In this case it was an accommodation that could easily have been made, but there is the question of whether it was the type of accommodation a person with that type of disability really required to work. And the corporation doesn't even know what exact accommodations they are legally required to offer, and if they guess wrong they could end up with a huge lawsuit, like in this story. Nothing about this seems fair to the corporation.
Worked there for 16 YEARS, THEN for some unexplained reason they just HAD to change her schedule, sounds to me they were looking for a way to get rid of her and royally muffed it.
Impossible to judge without details, but the verdict is clear. Needless to say, $125 mill is ridiculous.
