William Beaumont Hospital to Pay $30,000 in EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit

DETROIT – William Beaumont Hospital, a healthcare provider now known as Corewell Health East, will pay compensatory damages and provide other relief to settle a disability discrimination suit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC’s lawsuit alleged Beaumont refused to place a qualified nurse at its Wayne, Michigan location into certain part-time vacancies as a reasonable accommodation for her disability. According to the suit, Beaumont determined she could not work less than 32 hours a week in her position as an accommodation for her medical work restriction. The nurse expressed interest in several jobs she believed she could have performed within her hours restriction and asked to be placed in any of them. However, in April 2019, Beaumont refused to transfer her to a vacant position for which she was qualified, instead forcing her to apply and compete for openings, the EEOC said. After several months of submitting applications, the employee finally landed a position on her own.

“Federal law is clear that employers must make reasonable accommodations for an employee with a disability,” said Kenneth Bird, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Indianapolis District Office. “In some cases, federal law requires employers to reassign a qualified employee with a disability to a vacant position as a reasonable accommodation. Simply offering the employee an opportunity to compete for a vacant position does not meet employer obligations under federal law.”

Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires employers to reasonably accommodate qualified employees with disabilities and includes reassignment to a vacant position as a possible accommodation. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. William Beaumont Hospital., d/b/a Beaumont Health System, Civil Action No. 4:23-cv-11560) in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

In addition to monetary relief, the consent decree signed on Feb. 12 resolving the lawsuit requires compliance-related reporting to the EEOC, training for human resources employees and managers on the ADA and reasonable accommodations and posting of a notice in the workplace informing employees of their rights and the prohibition against disability discrimination.

For more information on disability discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Detroit Field Office is part of the Indianapolis District Office, which has jurisdiction over Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and parts of Ohio.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.