Cashier Fired for Eating to Prevent Insulin Reaction

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Cashier Fired for Eating to Prevent Insulin ReactionJosefina Hernandez didn’t think that eating a bag of chips to prevent her blood sugar from dropping would be cause for getting fired. But Hernandez, who worked at a Walgreens in San Francisco, found her employment terminated when she did just that.

Hernandez, who has worked at Walgreens for 18 years as a cashier, was fired for eating a bag of chips so that her blood sugar wouldn’t drop too low. According to her attorney, Cindy O’Hara, Hernandez is a diabetic. “She reached for a piece of candy in her pocket. She didn’t have one so she grabbed a $1.39 bag of chips and ate some to raise her blood sugar to avoid an emergency,” said O’Hara.

According to O’Hara, the assistant manager of the Walgreens store noticed Hernandez grabbing the bag of chips. Hernandez was suspended for three days following the incident, then went on vacation.

But after returning from vacation, Hernandez said she was pulled aside, brought into the office, and terminated as an employee. She said that the management fired her because she ate the chips before she paid for them. However, she says she did pay the $1.39 that before the end of her shift.

O’Hara is an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Commission filed the lawsuit because it believes that incident is a clear case of discrimination against someone with a disability — in this case, diabetes.

“An employer has a duty to accommodate people who have disabilities and take that into account and in this case it was clear that the action that Ms. Hernandez took was because of a disability,” says O’Hara. Thus far, Walgreens has not offered any comment on the lawsuit.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, employers are prohibited from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. The ADA recognizes diabetes as a disability, citing figures that nearly 17 million Americans over the age of 20 have been diagnosed with diabetes while over one million new cases of the disease are diagnosed each year. Individuals with diabetes can perform a variety of job functions, but according to the ADA, diabetics still receive discrimination from employers due to myths and stereotypes — such as the beliefs that diabetics are unable to drive, will require substantial sick leave, or will require frequent breaks. However, many diabetics work without restrictions or changes to normal schedules so employers typically aren’t even aware that employees have diabetes. Any accommodations that a diabetic may request, such as meal breaks, regular work schedules, and rest areas typically do not add any extra cost for the employer.

The Americans with Disabilities Act considers diabetes to be a “disability” when it “substantially limits one or more of a person’s major life activities” — activities that an average person can carry out with little or no difficulty, such as eating. Further, the ADA considers diabetes a disability when it causes adverse side effects that significantly limit a major life activity of the diabetic, even if the disease is currently being treated through diet, exercise, and insulin treatment and is no longer a limiting factor on those activities. Lastly, the ADA considers diabetes a disability if it does not affect the major life activities of an individual, but the individual’s employer treats him or her as if it does.

The ADA determines whether an individual’s diabetes is classified as a disability on a case-by-case basis.

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