KFC Manager Forces Employee To Flush Prescribed Meds Down Toilet – Settles For $30,000

Employers take note:   If your employees are medically required to take medications, don’t insult them, make them flush theirs meds down the toilet and then fire them!

It’s not a good idea.

It’s also against the law.

The EEOC alleged that the corporate owner of a KFC restaurant in Georgia did just that with a bipolar employee – and now it has to pay $30,000 to settle the lawsuit.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with a disability unless doing so would be an undue hardship.  This employer apparently didn’t know that – to its later chagrin.

Takeaway

Not much else for me to say here, so I’ll leave it to an EEOC attorney:

“Employers are not allowed to force workers with disabilities to choose between their jobs and their health. Reasonable accommodation includes allowing workers to rely on their physicians, not on the opinions of the company managers.”