The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued the Salvation Army, alleging that the organization denied a Lynchburg employee reasonable accommodation to seek cancer treatment.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit filed Monday, the Salvation Army told the employee, Krystle C. Woods, in fall 2024 that she would have to resign or be terminated after Woods requested to work later on some days to offset the time she took off for intermittent medical leave. Woods resigned.
The EEOC, a federal agency that investigates and litigates cases of employment discrimination, alleges two violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA requires employers to reasonably accommodate an employee’s disability and prohibits employers from discharging employees who request such accommodation.
“Absent undue hardship, intermittent leave can be a reasonable accommodation that allows employees to continue to perform the essential functions of the job while receiving medical treatments for a disability,” Melinda Dugas, regional attorney for the EEOC, said in a Tuesday news release announcing the lawsuit.
The EEOC said in its lawsuit that in April of this year it extended the Salvation Army an opportunity to informally resolve the matter after Woods filed a complaint about the situation with the EEOC. By May, the conciliation effort had failed, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks back pay plus interest and other unspecified compensation for Woods’ financial losses, unspecified punitive damages and orders requiring the Salvation Army to avoid discriminatory employment practices. It requests a jury trial.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a filing from the Salvation Army responding to the lawsuit was not available in the federal courts’ online system.
Salvation Army spokesperson Karen Yoho said in an email that the organization does not comment on pending litigation.
“The Salvation Army remains committed to serving our community and fulfilling our mission,” Yoho said.
The Salvation Army is an international Christian organization with U.S. headquarters in Alexandria. Its churches and community centers, such as the Salvation Army Center of Hope on Park Avenue in Lynchburg, provide shelter beds, free meals, disaster relief and other social services.
Legal complaint outlines EEOC’s case
According to the EEOC’s suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Woods was a part-time case worker in the Salvation Army’s Lynchburg family services office when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in August 2024.
After her diagnosis, Woods was granted intermittent leave for surgery, chemotherapy, lab work and other medical care.
In September 2024, after her chemotherapy began, Woods told the Salvation Army that her need for intermittent medical leave would decrease, according to the EEOC’s complaint.
In October 2024, Woods asked to work later on some days to offset time taken for medical leave, but the Salvation Army denied the request, the complaint states.
On or around Oct. 22, 2024, a human resources representative told Woods she needed a medical note saying how long her treatment would last, according to the EEOC’s complaint.
Woods provided a note saying that treatments would continue through the end of February 2025 and that she was requesting to be excused for chemotherapy and related recovery, the complaint states.
That same day, the representative told Woods that the Salvation Army needed to let her go, the complaint states.
The representative gave Woods a choice to resign and be eligible to return to work later, but if Woods refused, she would be involuntarily terminated and ineligible to work for the Salvation Army again, according to the EEOC.
“To avoid being forever excluded from employment with Defendant, Mrs. Woods sent an email saying that she was resigning due to Defendant’s ‘inability to accommodate [her] medical needs,’” the complaint states.
The human resources representative then directed Woods to redo the email to say she was resigning for health reasons if she wanted to return to her job, the complaint states.
Woods was capable of performing her job at all times and was never disciplined or otherwise counseled for failing to meet performance expectations, according to the complaint.
