EEOC Administrative Judge Awards $250,000 to Disabled USPS Employee

Washington, DC, January 30, 2018 --(PR.com)-- Hosea Legal PLLC announced today that it received a decision from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission finding that the United States Postal Service failed to accommodate a disabled employee, retaliated against her, and subjected her to a hostile work environment in violation of federal law.

The USPS employee returned from her honeymoon in November 2011 to work as a letter carrier in the D.C. Metro Area. The young woman, who had a serious back condition, asked the Postal Service to follow her medical restrictions so that she could perform her job safely. The Postal Service ignored her requests for accommodation and repeatedly threatened to send her home without pay. As a result, the employee worked in pain for months and suffered substantial injury to her back.

Administrative Judge Julie Procopiow Todd presided over the employee’s four-day EEOC hearing last January. In her decision, Judge Todd emphasized the severity of harm, stating that the Postal Service’s unlawful conduct “ultimately rendered Complainant incapable of carrying a pregnancy – this is a devastating prognosis for someone, like Complainant, who had hoped to have a child of her own with her husband.”

Judge Todd ordered the Postal Service to pay $250,000.00 in non-pecuniary compensatory damages, pay $958.00 in pecuniary compensatory damages, provide in-person EEO training to managers, and take other corrective action.

Stephanie Hosea, founding attorney of Hosea Legal, represented the employee. The administrative judge ordered the Postal Service to pay the employee's full attorney’s fees, noting in her decision that Ms. Hosea “provided exceptional representation to Complainant.”

"This decision sends a very strong message to the Postal Service that it must respond appropriately to disabled workers’ pleas for help,” said Ms. Hosea. “Otherwise, vulnerable employees get hurt, sometimes severely and irreparably like in this case.”

Hosea Legal PLLC is a Washington, D.C. law firm that represents federal employees nationwide before the EEOC, MSPB, and other federal administrative bodies. More information about Hosea Legal can be found here. Information about the EEOC, including its federal sector EEO complaint process, can be found here.