While the Starbucks Coffee Company wants to stand tall, they have paid $75,000 to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle a lawsuit for denying a reasonable accommodation to a woman who happens to be a dwarf.
Elsa Sallard also claims she was fired from her job as a barista because she is a dwarf.
Sallard told Starbuks during a training that she could use a stool or stepladder to do her job.
The manager at the El Paso Starbucks apparently didn't like stepladder idea and on the same day that Sallard made the stool request Starbucks terminated her employment, claiming that she would pose a 'danger' to customers and employees."
Starbucks says: "Using the stool in that environment just wasn't a reasonable accommodation in that store.
Starbucks also says, that the woman was hired on a trial basis. After three days, the store manager decided the work was too physically demanding for her to perform.
So, Starbucks is dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.
Society applauds Starbucks for giving the dwarf woman a chance, but now the price for that decision is $75,000, we wonder, would they do this again?
