Geisinger Health, Geisinger Health System Foundation doing business as Geisinger Health System, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, and affiliates (collectively, “Geisinger”), violated federal law when they discriminated against a registered nurse and a class of employees because of their disabilities, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Geisinger requires employees with disabilities to compete for reassignment to a new position even when reassignment is needed as a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s disability. Geisinger also misrepresents and manipulates employment opportunities to prevent employees with disabilities from obtaining accommodations, retaliates against employees who ask for accommodations or complain about discrimination, and otherwise interferes with employee rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the EEOC said.
According to the suit, a registered nurse at the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center had worked for the company for more than 30 years when she lost her job because she needed leave for a disability. Geisinger refused to hold her job open until she could return to work and posted her position as a vacancy shortly before she was expected to return from leave. When the nurse was released to come back to work, Geisinger refused to return her to her old position and took down the job posting so she couldn’t apply, the EEOC alleged. Although the nurse applied for numerous vacant positions with Geisinger for which she was qualified after that, Geisinger required her to compete with all other applicants for those positions, failed to reassign her to any of them as a reasonable accommodation, and then fired her. According to the suit, Geisinger subjected a class of employees to similar disability discrimination and retaliation.
