Manager spread news that woman had HIV, then fired her, feds say. Tractor Supply owes

A manager told a woman’s co-workers she had HIV, then she was fired when she complained of harassment from them, federal officials said.

Now, Tractor Supply Company owes the Mississippi woman $75,000, according to a May 14 news release from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Tractor Supply Company is a outdoor lifestyle retail chain that caters to farm workers, tradesman, ranchers and gardeners, among others.

McClatchy News reached out to the company and its attorney May 17 and did not immediately receive a response.

Harassment reported

The settlement ends a yearslong litigation process that traces back to incidents officials said began in December 2017 and followed her from a store in Laurel to another location in Hattiesburg.

At about that time, a woman said her manager at the store in Laurel pressured her into disclosing that she was born with human immunodeficiency virus when the manager repeatedly questioned why she was missing work for medical appointments, McClatchy News previously reported, citing a complaint filed in September 2022 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In turn, the manager disclosed that information to her co-workers, and by the time the woman transferred and was promoted in April 2018 to a different location of the company in Hattiesburg, her new co-workers had heard she had HIV, officials said.

They continued to spread the confidential information around and began harassing her, calling her a “contagion” and “contamination,” according to the complaint.

They told her that her diagnosis “made everybody highly uncomfortable” and began avoiding her for fear they would get HIV, mentioning the store should be “under quarantine” because of her, officials said.

Customers began to learn she had HIV and questioned her about her diagnosis while she worked, she said in the complaint.

The woman complained that she was being harassed and told her boss that her former manager “needed to be educated on the ADA, since she had unlawfully disclosed (the worker’s) confidential medical information,” according to the complaint.

Disclosing an employee’s HIV status or any medical information violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is also illegal to discriminate against an employee due to a disability or retaliate when the employee reports disability discrimination, according to the ADA.

Then her new manager disciplined her, and she elevated her complaint to a district manager before she was disciplined two more times “without proper justification,” officials said.

In its response to the EEOC’s complaint, the company said the warnings were justified.

She also sought out co-workers who may have seen the harassment and asked them to provide statements, but when the company found out, she was disciplined again, federal officials said.

She filed a charge with the commission, then was fired about a week after the company learned of her complaint, EEOC said.

Company denies discrimination

Tractor Supply Co. “denies that the Commission properly found reasonable cause, and further denies that any unlawful employment practices existed, or that (the worker) was entitled to any relief whatsoever.”

The company agreed to settle but denied wrongdoing, saying it operated in good faith.

“Tractor Supply Company created and maintained a hostile work environment for this employee by publicizing her private medical information and then failing to address the harassment this generated,” Marsha Rucker with the EEOC said. “Rather than protect this employee from harassment, the company fired her.”

As part of the consent decree, the company has also agreed to update its policies and educate employees on disability discrimination and retaliation.