EEOC Wins Impairment Discrimination Suit Against Payday Lender ‘The Bucks Store’

Federal Court Awards $56,500 to Employee Terminated for manic depression

SEATTLE – Today the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a success in just one of its very first impairment discrimination lawsuits taken up to trial concerning bipolar disorder. After a bench that is four-day, a federal region court joined judgment for $56,500 against Irving, Tex.-based Cottonwood Financial. The court discovered that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities online payday MA Act (ADA) while the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) whenever it fired a member of staff from the Walla Walla, Wash., shop.

After hearing the proof delivered at trial in EEOC v. Cottonwood Financial, Ltd. (No. CV-09-5073-EFS, E. D. Wash.), U.S. District Judge Edward F. Shea noted “Cottonwood’s deficient ADA policies and techniques” and discovered that the company’s half-dozen different rationales for terminating shop manager Sean Reilly had been a pretext for discrimination and therefore the organization had in fact fired Reilly since it regarded him as too disabled to your workplace as a result of their manic depression.

The court also commended Reilly’s efforts to deal with his disability, achieve success that is academic get a task. Reilly was an honor pupil in senior high school whom went to university in Portland, Ore. on a educational scholarship. Whilst in university, he had been clinically determined to have manic depression. Whenever their signs forced him to go out of college, he returned house to Walla Walla and found employment at Cottonwood, which does company while the money Store.

Employed as an associate manager in June 2006, Reilly was swiftly promoted to store supervisor in October and received a honor when it comes to success of their shop in November 2006. Nonetheless, in belated January 2007, Reilly, through a wellness care representative, requested a leave that is short adapt to new medicine recommended by their medical practitioner to treat their condition. Reilly alleged that the organization denied this demand, forcing him to come back to your workplace too quickly. The money Store fired Reilly in February 2007 – just times after their importance of ill leave first arose.

The ADA and WLAD outlaw firing a worker because of impairment and prohibit negative work choices inspired, even yet in component, by sick might toward a member of staff’s genuine or sensed disability or ask for an accommodation. The agency filed suit and was joined by Reilly, through his private counsel, Keller W. Allen of Spokane after first trying to reach a voluntary settlement with Cottonwood through the EEOC’s conciliation process.

Judge Shea discovered that the bucks Store broke the legislation by firing Reilly and awarded him $6,500 in straight straight back wages and $50,000 for emotional pain and suffering. The court also issued a three-year injunction, needing the money Store to teach its supervisors and hr workers on anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation rules.

Following the order that is final announced, Reilly said, “It felt as though many years of psychological damage had instantly been healed. After my diagnosis, i must say i challenged myself to conquer the odds and excel at the job. To own my impairment outweigh my performance during my boss’s eyes had been crushing.”

Reilly proceeded, “This situation had been never ever about cash or any kind of payback — it absolutely was constantly about doing the thing that is right assist protect the liberties of men and women with disabilities. I really hope this verdict allows others with manic depression to possess the same chance at obtaining and keeping effective and satisfying professions and also to avoid discrimination that is future. It generates me personally happy and proud to learn that justice prevailed in this full instance.”

William Tamayo, the EEOC’s regional attorney in san francisco bay area, stated, “The court sent a important message today that employers can not replace fiction for facts when coming up with work choices about disabled employees.

Companies performing on outdated fables and fears about disabilities have to know that the EEOC will likely not shy far from taking ADA cases to test to create them in to the twenty-first century.”

Tamayo respected EEOC Supervisory test Attorney John Stanley for overseeing the litigation, Senior Trial Attorneys Damien Lee and Jamal Whitehead for representing the EEOC at trial, and Investigator Annalie Greer for investigating the way it is allegations.

Reilly’s private counsel Keller Allen included, “The court saw through the numerous and changing excuses provided by Cottonwood for firing Sean Reilly. This will be a well-deserved triumph for the hard-working individual that declined allowing their impairment to be used to create a limit on their achievements.”