3/28/16 MIAMI EEOC Administrative Judge Awards $120,000 to Veteran Postal Employee in PTSD Discrimination Case
U.S. Postal Service Discriminated against Disabled Veteran Letter Carrier, EEOC Judge Rules
Administrative Judge Kimberly A. Greenleaf of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC”) Miami District Office has ordered the United States Postal Service to pay $120,000 in monetary damages to Robert Wells, a Jupiter, Florida veteran who suffers from combat-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”).
Judge Greenleaf presided over Wells’ EEOC hearing in West Palm Beach, Florida from May 6-11, 2015. In a 92-page decision received by the parties on March 24, Judge Greenleaf ruled that the Postal Service’s conduct violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a law prohibiting disability discrimination in the federal workplace that is very similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Specifically, Judge Greenleaf found that the Postal Service discriminated and retaliated against Wells, who had asked for a reasonable accommodation, when it transferred him from the Wellington Post Office to an undesired location in a high crime area. When Wells won a grievance returning him to the Wellington office, his manager refused to let him bid on a route there and transferred him again. The Postal Service continued to engage in unlawful conduct in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, Judge Greenleaf opined, when it forced Wells to go on emergency administrative leave, subjected him to an involuntary psychiatric fitness for duty examination, and disclosed his confidential medical information to unauthorized Postal Service personnel.
In addition to the $120,000 in monetary relief to Wells, Judge Greenleaf ordered significant equitable remedies to protect other disabled Postal Service employees from similar discrimination and reprisal: the Postal Service must provide a minimum of sixteen hours of disability discrimination and reprisal training to all management officials involved in Wells’ case; the Postal Service must take immediate steps to ensure the confidentiality of all of its employees’ medical information; and the Postal Service must post a notice admitting a finding of liability and promising not to discriminate or retaliate against its employees in the future.
Mr. Wells was represented by Stephanie E. Hosea, Esq. of Hosea Legal PLLC, a Washington, D.C. law firm that specializes in representing federal employees in Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) complaints, Merit Systems Protection Board (“MSPB”) appeals, and other legal matters nationwide. More information about Hosea Legal can be found at www.law4work.com. Further information about the EEOC can be found at www.eeoc.gov.
Source: Hosea Legal PLLC
How do you think I get my job?
He was transferred to a “undesired location in a high crime area?” Well, somebody’s got to deliver the mail in that area. Sounds like a big baby looking for another free ride on the Postal Services’ gravy train. The sick, lame and lazy are ruining the Postal Service. You know who you are.
Like what many have said before, if postal managers were held personally and more important, financially liable for any grievance creating actions on their part, you would not see stories like this anymore. Think of the millions, possibly billions of dollars that would be saved if management would simply follow instructions and honor labor contracts???? How hard would that be to do???
They should have fired all the tools and thugs
Postal management will receive bonuses. And will be promoted.
truth have a certain ring to it! why the censorship?
susie-did a little detective work- you have to contact The Labor Department in your area, covers criminal actions of employers concerning FMLA violations.. Department Of Labor,1400 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY. in your complaint make sure you site: the Plant Manager, Sr MDO, and the Supervisor. google DOL, Westbury, NY and info will pop up. good luck! these people are not gods, they are scum!
no surprise to me-at Mid-Island PD & C 117/119 the Sr MDO is engaging in unlawful conduct and harassment of people who have approved FMLA leave…….they bring you in and try to brow beat you into not taking sick leave FMLA.when you tell them to cease and desist because they are in violation of the disability act, they just double down. PO Office of OIG should send in a investigative team to stop this criminal before I call the Hosea Legal Team in Washington, DC. they should give me an award for outing these criminals and saving the PO another $120,000! I guess the PFP bonus money action plan in this facility is attendance for 2016! does this PMG Megan Brennen have a clue?
Well said sir!
Similar incidents? Well, that certainly shows it’s a policy and not an individual action. I really don’t understand how management keeps getting away with such reprehensible behavior. They protect their own, we know that. Only when a camera films them, or somebody goes public do we get any kind of reaction.
This is a two pronged problem. First, the terrible standards and methods for appointing bad people into management positions in the first place have to be eliminated. Promotions are based more on a relative/buddy system than merit, and maybe that’s all they look at is who knows and who blows who, to put it bluntly.
My district is full of families working for management. It seems they get fast tracked from day one. I know of two people who started as craft but had relatives in higher places and were promoted into management within a couple months or a year at most. Another holds a high level job thanks to again, higher level relatives who paved the way even though this person hasn’t been in the Service long at all.
Non-relatives go the suck up way. It’s disgusting to see them pander and schmooze and unfortunately it can work. Now, if one of those turns out to be decent, I guess I don’t mind, and I can name two who have been good to me and my fellow craft employees. But one is a blithering moron, like so many, and it perplexes me why anybody would let this person anywhere near a supervisor’s desk. But that is not a rare occurrence.
Then add the snitch or two, and you have a recipe for what makes up the management. Not that every carrier, clerk, or mail handler is a saint, either – we’re all plagued with bad people who make work tougher for the rest of us, and often are so unlikable it’s near torture to have to put up with them.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the only way we can make USPS management a decent entity is to have a totally independent agency not affiliated with management or the BOG in any way. Their job would be to investigate abuse, discrimination, malfeasance and misappropriation of funds, which is the nice way to say embezzlement. We are a service, not a for profit business, and that alone should justify the establishment of such an agency.
Well said sir!