The EEOC (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) announced court approval of the distribution of a $6,200,000 compensation fund in the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) litigation between the EEOC and Sears, Roebuck & Co. The distribution is being carried out pursuant to the terms of a consent decree approved by Federal District Judge Wayne Anderson on September 29, 2009.
In its lawsuit against Sears, the EEOC alleged Sears maintained an inflexible workers’ compensation leave exhaustion policy and terminated employees instead of providing them with reasonable accommodations for their disabilities, in violation of the ADA. The case resulted in the largest ADA settlement in a single lawsuit in EEOC history.
Under the terms of the decree, the EEOC provided claim forms to certain Sears employees who had been terminated under Sears’ workers’ comp leave policy. The claimants were asked to report to the EEOC, among other things, the extent of their impairments, their ability to return to work at Sears, and whether Sears had attempted to return them to work.
Based on these criteria, the EEOC found that 235 individuals were eligible to share in the settlement. The average award was approximately $26,300. More than 20 claimants were found to be ineligible by the EEOC. As with all EEOC litigation, none of the settlement fund are retained by the EEOC; all of it is distributed.
“It is a satisfying day indeed when victims finally receive compensation for the wrongful discrimination they have endured,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart Ishimaru. “The EEOC is pleased and proud that we fought long and hard on this case to protect the rights of workers with disabilities, and that many Sears employees will now benefit from our law enforcement efforts.”
EEOC Trial Attorney Aaron DeCamp noted that, in addition to the disbursement of settlement funds, the EEOC is seeing positive effects from the consent decree. (workersxzcompxzkit)
“As a result of the decree, we believe Sears has an improved workers’ compensation leave process, and it has posted notices regarding the decree," DeCamp commented. "We know that employees have been seeing the notices because we’ve been receiving inquiries as a result. So we think it’s pretty clear that our lawsuit genuinely benefited the employees of Sears and strengthened the company’s human resources processes.”
The lawsuit, filed in November 2004, was assigned to Federal District Court Judge Wayne Anderson of the Northern District of Illinois and Magistrate Judge Susan Cox, and is captioned EEOC v. Sears Roebuck & Co., N.D. Ill. No. 04 C 7282. Judge Anderson entered the order approving the monetary distributions on February. 4, 2009.
Author Robert Elliott, executive vice president, Amaxx Risks Solutions, Inc. has worked successfully for 20 years with many industries to reduce Workers' Compensation costs, including airlines, health care, manufacturing, printing/publishing, pharmaceuticals, retail, hospitality and manufacturing. He can be contacted at: Robert_Elliott@ReduceYourWorkersComp.com or 860-553-6604.
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