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Walmart broke the law after firing a long-time employee who suffers from Down syndrome according to a jury. The U.S. Equal Employment Commission is pledging the judge to stop this from happening again in the United States and specifically Walmart which is the nation’s largest private employer.

In a new filing, the federal agency said that Walmart should be watched out for the next five years and shall make clearer company policies that protect employees with disabilities while entitling them to reasonable accommodations.

According to the EEOC, Walmart should be forced to post a sign about the lawsuit filed against it. Additionally, the company should mention in the posting that there were actions taken against it in over 100 stores.

The EEOC has made a memo that is shared with the judge where it mentions the illegal firing of Marlo Spaeth, a longtime employee with Down syndrome. It has been used as a cautionary tale about the consequence of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. The judge will decide whether or not to grant the injunctive measures.

Walmart is reviewing the filing, company spokesman Randy Hargrove said.
In a previous statement, he said Walmart’s leaders and managers “take supporting all our associates seriously and for those with disabilities, we routinely accommodate thousands every year.”

Walmart vs EEOC long battle

The legal battle between Walmart and the EEOC has been going on for years after Spaeth got fired. The employee who has Down syndrome has worked for over 16 years as a sales associate at the Walmart Supercenter in Manitowoc which is a small city in eastern Wisconsin on the shore of Lake Michigan. She was fired after the store started computerizing the scheduling system, and the managers refused to reinstate Spaeth’s longtime work schedule.

Walmart lost the lawsuit in July, and the judge ordered the company to pay over $125 million verdicts. The verdict is one of the highest in the federal agency’s history for a single victim. The damages that the judge allowed were estimated at $300,000, the maximum allowed under the law.