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Wal-Mart Stores Inc., paid $50,000 to a former Oregon employee with a mental disability who claimed he was discriminated against when the retailer fired him in March.
(The Associated Press)
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., agreed to pay $50,000 to a former Oregon employee who claimed he was fired by the world's largest retailer because of his mental disability.
The retailer, which admitted no wrongdoing as part of the agreement, initially had responded that Brian Kemler’s complaint “had no merit.”
A call to Kemler’s lawyer was not immediately returned.
As part of his complaint filed last April with the civil rights division of the state's Bureau of Labor and Industries, Brian Kemler explained that he was hired for a janitor job at a Eugene Wal-Mart in 2005 with help from the Oregon Office of Vocational and Rehabilitation Services.
Kemler stated in a document filed with the state that his sister spoke with a Wal-Mart human resources manager to explain his limitations and how he might need additional training and time to complete some tasks. The retailer’s human resources manager agreed to contact Kemler’s sister if any problems arose, the document said.
In May 2012, the complaint continued, Kemler’s sister spoke with the manager of the West 11th Avenue store and again explained her brother’s limitations. Then, in March of 2013, Kemler was fired from his job cleaning the bathrooms and the bottle-return room after he was given a “task without sufficient time to complete it,” his complaint said.
A lawyer on behalf of Wal-Mart originally countered that Kemler was given twice the amount of time to fulfill his jobs and repeated training and "yet his performance continued to decline." Kemler also had been alerted four times that his work was not getting done and he turned down an opportunity to have a "job coach" work by his side.
“Store management had no knowledge of any obligation or request to inform Mr. Kemler’s sister of his performance problems,” the lawyer letter to the state continued. “Wal-Mart respectfully requests that this complaint be dismissed in its entirety.”
In response to the complaint, Wal-Mart’s lawyer stated that it had not discriminated against Kemler. In fact, the lawyer wrote, 25 other employees also had been fired from the store between March 2012 and March 2013.
Kemler was not re-hired as part of the agreement.
“We have thousands of employees throughout the company who regularly perform jobs with reasonable accomodations provided as needed,” said Randy Hargrove, a Wal-Mart spokesman who was not familiar with the case. “Wal-Mart does not condone discrimination or retaliation of any kind.”
“It’s not unusual for a large employer to have numerous claims over a period of years... s
The commissioner added that the state receives about 60,000 calls annually from employees with questions about their rights. Ultimately, he said, the state opens an average of 5,000 investigations.
“It is hard enough for folks without a disability to find a good paying job," he said. "The settlement will really help get this fellow back up on his feet again and hopefully, in the position to be out looking for work.”