$376,724.00 jury verdict

A highly praised housekeeper at a major St. Louis area hospital with over 15-years on the job suffers from chronic arthritis. For over 14-years, the woman occasional takes, intermittent FMLA leave to attend doctor’s appointments for her arthritis, and on each such occasion, she is permitted to return to work cleaning physician’s medical offices with no restrictions and no questions asked by the hospital. As the woman approaches her 15th year anniversary with the hospital, she returns from what she believes to be another routine, approved FMLA leave only to discover that the hospital is now demanding that she take a “fitness for duty” test which, at least according to the jury, is far beyond any physical requirements ever demanded of a hospital housekeeper. After she “fails” the hospital’s impossible “fitness for duty” test, the hospital proceeds to demand the woman comply with a maze of complicated, and often contradictory, reasonable accommodation policies that, even for an employment discrimination attorney, are impossible to decipher. When the woman allegedly fails to return one of the seemingly endless number of forms to the hospital’s HR department, and after 15-years of devoted service as a hospital housekeeper, she is fired without any compensation. Following a jury trial in the St. Louis County Circuit Court…