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- A Holiday Inn manager was fired after checking himself into hospital for treatment of depression, the EEOC alleged.
- The worker, a GM at a hotel in Nebraska, was fired hours before being discharged, the EEOC said.
- The hotel's owners will now pay the former worker $100,000 to settle the claims.
The general manager at a Holiday Inn in Omaha, Nebraska was fired after he checked himself into hospital for treatment of depression, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
His employers never sought medical opinions about his ability to return to work before discharging him, the EEOC said in a lawsuit. The hotel will now pay the former worker $100,000 to settle the claims.
The worker, who wasn't named in the lawsuit first filed in fall 2022, worked as the general manager of the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Omaha Downtown, owned and operated by Anant Enterprises, Anant Operations, and Farnam Lodging.
Prior to starting at the hotel, the worker had been diagnosed with depression which was "adequately controlled" by medication, the EEOC wrote in the lawsuit. He didn't tell his employers that he had depression when he was hired in July 2019, the EEOC said.
But in October 2019, the worker noticed his symptoms were less controlled and he had strong feelings of anger and frustration as well as thoughts of self-harm, the EEOC wrote in the lawsuit. One day when he wasn't working, the worker asked his wife to take him to hospital and told the hotel's HR manager that he wouldn't be able to work, the lawsuit said.
The worker was hospitalized for two nights and was discharged on the afternoon of October 30, 2019. But that morning, the worker's direct supervisor, who was Anant's vice president of operations, told him that his employment had been terminated because the company was "afraid he would hurt other people," per the EEOC.
According to the lawsuit, Anant didn't ask the worker for any type of medical release or speak to him or his doctors about his ability to return to work.
Anant ultimately fired the worker "based on fears and stereotypes regarding his disability, depression," the EEOC's suit claimed. It accused the employer of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Anant has agreed to pay the worker $25,000 in damages as back pay and $75,000 in compensatory damages to settle the claims and provide recurring ADA training to its staff. The consent decree was signed by Chief US District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr on December 27.
Business Insider contacted Anant for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Kirt Trivedi, Anant's president, told The Nebraska Examiner that the ownership group felt "strongly that the accusations are false," but that the settlement was preferable to a trial.
Trivedi told The Examiner that the former general manager had said that he didn't go to work because he was worried he might hurt someone, and that they only found out about his depression symptoms after contacting him for failing to turn up to his shift.
"Humans are humans — everyone goes through things," Trivedi told the publication. "We'll be there for them, but you have to let us know."