Outback Steakhouse will pay $65,000 to a server it fired because of his traumatic brain injury, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The payment will settle a lawsuit EEOC filed on the server’s behalf. The commission alleged that John Woods was fired after a new manager took over an Outback restaurant in Phoenix. Woods worked successfully under the restaurant’s previous manager but a new manager fired him because of his disability, according to EEOC’s suit, EEOC v. OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC d/b/a Outback Steakhouse and OS Restaurant Services, Inc., Civil Action No. 2:11-cv-01754-NVW.
Outback agreed to settle the claims by providing the monetary relief, revising its anti-discrimination policies, training managers on disability discrimination and posting notices in its Arizona restaurants about employees’ ADA rights.
“John Woods worked tirelessly to be a good server after suffering a traumatic brain injury,” said Nancy Griffiths, an EEOC trial attorney, in a press release. “The ADA prohibits employers like Outback from firing individuals like John who add so much to the workplace.”
“Managers cannot fire employees because of their mistaken beliefs about what individuals with disabilities can accomplish,” added Rayford Irvin, EEOC’s Phoenix district director.