EEOC Sues Kroger Over Firing of Worker with Neuropathy After Revoking Her Walker Accommodation

The EEOC filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, against Kroger Texas L.P. – Houston Division, operator of Kroger grocery store #300 in Houston's Clear Lake/NASA area, charging the company with disability discrimination and failure to accommodate under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

At the center of the case is a self-service checkout attendant who suffers from neuropathy — a condition that limited her ability to walk and move and caused her feet to go numb when she stood too long. According to the EEOC's complaint, for three years she worked successfully using a walker as a reasonable accommodation. When new management took over, the EEOC alleges, that accommodation was revoked without any interactive process to assess whether it remained reasonable or whether an alternative existed.

Instead of engaging with the employee, the EEOC alleges, management directed her to take leave — which she neither wanted nor needed — until she could return to work without an accommodation. When she could not produce medical documentation to support a leave request, Kroger terminated her, according to the suit.

The EEOC filed the case, docketed as Civil Action No. 4:26-cv-02448, after attempting to resolve the matter through its pre-litigation conciliation process.

EEOC Senior Trial Attorney Claudia Molina said that an employer, in consultation with an employee facing a disability, must consider whether an accommodation is reasonable, and that revoking a previously granted reasonable accommodation can violate the ADA. Rayford Irvin, director of the EEOC's Houston District Office, said that disability discrimination in the workplace, which includes failure to accommodate and discharge because of disability, will not be tolerated by the EEOC.

The agency is seeking back pay, instatement or front pay, compensatory and punitive damages in amounts to be determined at trial, a permanent injunction barring future disability discrimination, and a court order requiring Kroger to institute and carry out policies, practices and programs governing the requesting, processing, and granting of reasonable accommodations for disabilities, and which eradicate the effects of Kroger's alleged discriminatory employment practices.