THE ACCOMMODATION YOU PROVIDED THE PAPERWORK FOR
The Kroger Co. will pay $75,000 and provide other equitable relief to settle an EEOC disability discrimination and retaliation lawsuit announced August 20, 2026 (EEOC, 2026, https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/kroger-pay-75000-eeoc-disability-discrimination-and-retaliation-lawsuit). The case: a breast cancer survivor whose cancer treatments caused permanent nerve damage to her lower extremities was hired as a cashier at the Kroger in Atlanta's Edgewood retail district. She requested to sit on a stool or chair during her shifts as a reasonable accommodation. She provided supporting medical documentation.
The store then stopped scheduling her for shifts. Ignored her repeated phone calls. She filed an internal complaint.
This is the part that matters: the answer was not "no." The answer was not "we reviewed your request and determined a stool would constitute an undue hardship." The answer was silence, and then the schedule went blank.
I am autistic, I have ADHD, I have hEDS. I have requested accommodations. The documented request that gets no answer but produces a sudden, unexplained change in your schedule – that is not new to me. It is not confusion. It is not an administrative delay. It is retaliation, and it has a shape.
The EEOC calls it what it is: disability discrimination and retaliation. Kroger will pay $75,000 (EEOC, 2026, https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/kroger-pay-75000-eeoc-disability-discrimination-and-retaliation-lawsuit). The settlement includes updated complaint procedures, specialized training for store leaders and HR on how to handle accommodation requests, and workplace notice posting about the case.
Notice what Kroger is being required to do: train store leaders and HR on HOW TO HANDLE ACCOMMODATION REQUESTS. That means the EEOC found they did not know how, or did not follow what they knew. Either way, a medically documented request for a chair – submitted with all the paperwork, everything the ADA process asks for – resulted in an employee being disappeared from the schedule.
This is not the only one. In a 2023 EEOC lawsuit against Otis Elevator Company, an assistant mechanic with autism and ADHD requested accommodations to help him process sounds and voices on noisy construction sites. The company failed to provide any accommodation for several months. Then, shortly after he requested help, Otis placed him on unpaid leave, claiming he had a foot injury (EEOC, 2023, https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-otis-elevator-company-disability-discrimination).
Same structure. Medical need documented. Accommodation requested. Delay or silence. Then an adverse employment action – de-scheduling, unpaid leave – with a pretext that has nothing to do with the accommodation itself.
The pretext is the tell. Kroger did not say the accommodation was denied. They just stopped calling her in. Otis did not say the sensory accommodation was unreasonable. They said he had a foot injury. The justification that appears AFTER the schedule or the employment status changes is the one that says: we knew what we were doing.
ADA compliance is not posting the notice. It is not having a form. It is providing the accommodation or documenting why you cannot, and doing that BEFORE you stop scheduling someone or put them on leave. When the paperwork is in and the schedule goes blank, that is not process. That is punishment.
The settlement says Kroger will train its people. I hope the training includes this: when an employee provides medical documentation and asks to sit, and your first thought is to stop putting them on the schedule, that thought is the liability. Recognize it before it becomes an EEOC filing and a $75,000 payout (EEOC, 2026, https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/kroger-pay-75000-eeoc-disability-discrimination-and-retaliation-lawsuit).
Because the employee who submitted the paperwork and then watched the schedule empty out? They already know what happened. And they will remember that getting the documentation right did not protect them.
