EEOC reaches $75,000 accord in postpartum-depression case

A health-care consulting firm has agreed to pay $75,000 to settle an Americans with Disabilities Act claim brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a former Rockville employee who claimed her company fired her rather than making job-related accommodations for her postpartum depression.

EEOC alleged that Lash Group had extended Meron Debru’s short-term disability leave due to her depression but failed to permit her to return either to her job of providing customer assistance to patients and pharmacists or to a vacant position for which she was also qualified. Instead, the Charlotte, N.C.-based company forced her to apply in vain for vacant posts and ultimately fired her due to her postpartum depression, the commission alleged.

Lash Group admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the consent decree approved and filed this week in the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

“An employee with postpartum depression may need additional leave or other reasonable accommodations under the ADA,” Spencer H. Lewis, Jr.EEOC’s regional director for Maryland and neighboring states, said in a statement. “This case should remind all employers to be proactive and review their policies and procedures, including short-term disability leave policies, to ensure that employees with disabilities have equal employment opportunities, including reasonable accommodations if needed.”

The $75,000 represents $40,000 in back pay plus interest and $35,000 in non-economic damages, according to the consent decree.

In addition to the financial settlement, Lash Group agreed to provide “a neutral reference” for Debru if contacted by a potential employer, providing at least her dates of employment, position and work location.

Lash Group will also adopt and distribute to all employees a revised policy notifying them to tell the company if they believe they need a reasonable accommodation, including leave or a job modification. The company, which declined to comment on the settlement, also agreed to provide training to its managers and employees nationwide on the ADA, with a special emphasis on providing reasonable accommodations.

‘Reasonable accommodation’

In addition, Lash Group will provide at its workplaces a notice informing employees that a “reasonable accommodation” may include unpaid medical leave; taking steps to make workplaces “readily accessible and usable by” people with disabilities; and offering job restructuring, such as part-time or modified work schedules.

The ADA requires companies with at least 15 employees to make reasonable accommodations for its workers and job applicants with disabilities, unless the business can prove the accommodation would impose an “undue hardship” on the company. The law defines a disability as a condition that, even when treated, substantially limits a person in a major life activity or bodily function.

In its lawsuit filed last year, the EEOC said Debru’s postpartum depression substantially limited her ability to eat, sleep, think, concentrate and interact with others.

EEOC claimed that Debru told the company’s personnel department of her need to take leave for the birth of her child and was granted short term-disability benefits from April 25, 2012, through June 6, 2012.

Debru’s doctor, concerned she was suffering from postpartum depression, did not release her to return to work. A specialist confirmed the doctor’s suspicion.

Debru told the company’s leave administrator, Aetna, that she was taking additional unpaid leave because she was unable to return to work. Aetna subsequently told Lash Group, but the company filled Debru’s position on July 15 when she did not return to work, EEOC alleged.

The company mailed Debru a termination letter on Aug. 1, 2012, saying she had exhausted her six months of unpaid leave.

When Debru responded that she had been on leave for less than three months, Lash Group extended her short-term disability until Sept. 5, 2012, and said she could apply for open positions.

Debru applied for three jobs for which she was qualified but was not offered any of them, EEOC claimed. The company fired her on Nov. 2, 2012, the agency added in the lawsuit.

The case was Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Lash Group, No. 8:14-cv-03091-PJM