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Arkansas-based Murphy Oil USA Inc. will pay $100,000 to settle a workplace discrimination suit filed in Texas by federal officials.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit against Murphy Oil, which owns Murphy USA retail gasoline stores typically located in Walmart parking lots in over 20 states, for disability discrimination and retaliation.
According to EEOC’s lawsuit, Murphy Oil required a 10-year employee with a serious back impairment to perform duties that violated work restrictions imposed by his treating physician. The EEOC’s suit also claims that the company fired the employee in retaliation for complaining to management about the failure to accommodate his medical restrictions.
Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires employers to provide a reasonable accommodation unless it would cause a significant expense or difficulty to the employer. Retaliation against an employee for raising or reporting discrimination to supervisors also violates the ADA. The ADA also protects individuals from coercion, intimidation, threat, harassment, or interference in their exercise of their own rights or their encouragement of someone else’s exercise of rights granted by the ADA.
The EEOC filed suit, Civil Action No. 2:16-CV-00048-AM-CW, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Del Rio Division, after the EEOC’s San Antonio Field Office attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement through the agency’s conciliation process.
As part of the two-year consent decree resolving the suit, Murphy Oil USA will pay $100,000 to its former employee. Murphy Oil USA also agreed to implement written policies to achieve compliance with the ADA; provide training regarding the ADA; and post a notice referencing the consent decree.
Source: EEOC