WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal agency's claims of disability discrimination involving an employee with breast cancer against a hotel owner/operator which operates under franchise agreements with Marriott International, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Hilton and Best Western, have been settled.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the B.F. Saul group of real estate companies will pay $210,000 to settle the allegations that allege Marriott hotels, owned and operated by B.F. Saul, fired a female worker one week before her scheduled breast cancer surgery. The EEOC alleges that when supervisors learned of a female employee's breast cancer diagnosis and that her surgeon said she may need certain accommodations after the surgery, she was told it would take too long for her to get better, even though it was too early to predict her outcome. The employee was then escorted out of the building and told not to return, the EEOC said.
"Unfortunately, cancer behaves in unpredictable ways," EEOC Washington Field Office acting director Mindy Weinstein said in a statement. "This settlement should remind employers they cannot make hasty decisions simply because an employee facing cancer surgery can't predict how it will affect her."
Because the employee died two years after her surgery, the settlement will be paid to her estate and includes that B.F. Saul provide training to all management regarding the American's with Disability Act and periodically supply the EEOC with information about employee's requests for accommodations.