EEOC sues Walmart for not hiring a congential amputee

The EEOC has sued Walmart on behalf of a woman who claims the retailer failed to hire her for a stocker job after it learned that she born without a right hand.

The Houston Chronicle has the details:

Jesse Landry, who doesn't wear a prosthetic arm or hand, applied for several positions at the Conroe Walmart in the summer of 2015, and was interviewed for a stocker job on July 14, 2015. During the interview, a Walmart manager told Landry that she would not be able to perform the job because of her disability and ended the interview.

Landry, a high school basketball player, was surprised the manager would consider her disability as disqualifying.

For its part, Walmart denies allegations and says that it has "no record that Ms. Landry was denied the opportunity to work for us because of an alleged disability."

It is possible that Landry might not have been able to perform the essential functions of the stocker job with, or without, reasonable accommodation. But, based on the allegations, it does appear that the interviewing manager made any inquiries or efforts as part of the interactive process to figure it out.

The Job Accommodation Network offers seven questions an employer should consider when considering accommodating amputee employees:

1. What limitations is the employee experiencing?
2. How do these limitations affect the employee and the employee’s job performance?
3. What specific job tasks are problematic as a result of these limitations?
4. What accommodations are available to reduce or eliminate these problems? Are all possible resources being used to determine possible accommodations?
5. Has the employee been consulted regarding possible accommodations?
6. Once accommodations are in place, would it be useful to meet with the employee to evaluate the effectiveness of the accommodations and to determine whether additional accommodations are needed?
7. Do supervisory personnel and employees need training?

Possible accommodations to consider include motorized or other carts, lifts, tool balancers, headsets, reachers, writing aids, and modified keyboards and other input devices.

If the EEOC's allegations are believed, however, Walmart considered none of these.Which is going to present a big problem in defending this lawsuit.

* Image by Kadres via Pixabay