Global retailer Walmart will pay $60,000 and provide other relief to settle a disability discrimination suit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced Monday.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Walmart revoked disability accommodations provided to an employee at its Farmingdale, New York supercenter, which allowed her to successfully perform her job as a customer availability process associate since 2017. The employee’s managers had given her positive performance ratings, describing her as “very dedicated to her position” and providing “valued performance.”
In January 2020, however, Walmart managers who were new to the Farmingdale location discontinued accommodations designed to help the employee, who has hearing, speech and cognitive impairments, to understand her daily assignments. One day, this failure to reasonably accommodate her disabilities led to a conflict about her tasks for the day, which prompted Walmart to fire her for insubordination, according to the suit.
“Federal law prohibits firing an employee because of a disability or the need for a reasonable accommodation,” said Kimberly Cruz, regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District Office. “If an employer’s unlawful failure to accommodate a disability leads to an employee’s termination, the firing itself may also be unlawful under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires the accommodation of disabilities absent undue hardship, and prohibits employers from discharging an employee because of their disability or because of the need to accommodate a disability. The EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Civil Action No. 1:23-cv-06902) after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.
Arlean Nieto, the acting director of the EEOC’s New York District Office, said, “The EEOC will continue to hold employers accountable for denying reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities.”
In addition to monetary relief, the consent decree signed on Dec. 17, 2025 resolving the lawsuit requires training for managers and human resources employees on the ADA and reasonable accommodations, compliance-related reporting to the EEOC, and posting of a notice in the workplace informing employees of the settlement and of their rights against discrimination.
