All Day Medical Care Clinic, a healthcare clinic based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, settled allegations from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that it refused to accommodate and then fired a scheduling assistant on her first day of work, according to court documents filed Sept. 17.
According to the agency’s lawsuit, the scheduling assistant informed the CEO on her first day of work that she had a low vision disability and would require Optelec Magnification and Zoomtext software to perform her job. He allegedly told her “she should have disclosed her disability and need for accommodation during her interview” and that “things may have turned out differently” if she had done so.
Although a caseworker from a rehabilitation services department allegedly called and offered to pay for the software, the CEO stood firm in firing the new employee, EEOC said.
In the consent decree, in which All Day Medical Care Clinic did not admit liability, the healthcare provider agreed to pay $75,000, representing $50,000 in lost wages and $25,000 in noneconomic damages. It will also disseminate to new employees its Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation policy, designate individuals to whom such requests should be made, provide ADA compliance training to all HR and managerial staff, and post an EEOC notice informing employees of the settlement and its terms.
“This action serves to remind employers that employees need not disclose their disabilities prior to employment, and that they are entitled to accommodations absent undue hardship,” Rosemarie Rhodes, director of the EEOC’s Baltimore Field Office, said in an agency news release.