Scott Lentz
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Colorado dispensary chain Nature’s Herbs & Wellness will pay a former employee $95,000 after firing her for requesting a disability accommodation. It also has agreed to change policies and employee training at all seven of its stores as part of a two-year consent decree it accepted to end a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“We appreciate Nature’s Herbs’ efforts toward resolving this case in a way that will require it to improve its trainings, policies and procedures,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, an EEOC regional attorney, in an October 17 announcement of the deal. “Employees are not required to disclose their disabilities when they are hired by an employer, but when an employee does disclose and requests an accommodation, employers are required to engage in the interactive process with the employee and are prohibited from taking adverse action against them for this.”
According to the EEOC, the employee was Megan Myrant, a budtender at the High Plainz Strains store at 2506 Sixth Avenue in Garden City, which is owned by Nature’s Herbs. In 2020, she told her manager she couldn’t remember prices because of a stroke she had suffered as a child resulting from Type 1 diabetes, but the store manager ignored her request. He was frustrated with Myrant because she couldn’t remember prices or to clock in and out throughout the day, the federal agency notes.
John Rotherham, the owner of Nature’s Herbs & Wellness, complained to a company human resources manager that Myrant never mentioned her disability before she was hired, but the EEOC points out that employees don’t have to do that. A human resources manager called Mryant a “fruitcake,” according to the EEOC file, and Rotherham told the HR manager to “cut her loose.”
After the employee accused the store manager of disability discrimination, the store suspended her without pay and then fired her. That violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits discrimination based on disability, and the EEOC sued Nature’s Herbs & Wellness on Myrant’s behalf in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on September 30.
On October 17, Rotherham agreed to enter into a two-year consent decree in order to resolve the case, sending a note to Myrant to “express my sincere regret at how you were treated during your employment with Nature’s Herb,” according to the EEOC. “We want to ensure you that Nature’s Herb is committed to avoiding disability discrimination.”
Nature’s Herbs & Wellness did not respond to requests for a comment.
