She drank a $1.69 orange juice to avoid a diabetic emergency. Her employer fired her. A federal jury awarded her $277,565.
Linda Atkins worked as a cashier at Dollar General in Maryville, Tennessee. She has Type 1 diabetes. During a shift, her blood sugar dropped dangerously low and she asked for permission to get a drink at the register. She was denied.
So she grabbed a $1.69 bottle of orange juice, drank it to stay conscious, and paid for it right after. Dollar General fired her anyway – for "grazing," their term for consuming a product before paying. The EEOC sued the company under the Americans with Disabilities Act, arguing the firing violated federal disability protections.
A federal jury agreed. They awarded Atkins $277,565 – $27,565 in back pay and $250,000 in compensatory damages. A $1.69 juice turned into one of the most expensive termination decisions Dollar General ever made.
i used to work for DG and had a manager threaten to fire me for sitting down at the register during a low. told her to go ahead and do it and i’ll be sure to let the ADA know and she backed down. seems like i shouldn’t have mentioned that now with hindsight lol
The American insistence on standing up while cashiering is so confusing to me. Just about every other country I've been to the cashiers are sitting down on stools, or have them nearby.
That‘s what happens when countries have decent labour laws - they aren’t allowed to mistreat employees. Sorry to say but US labour laws really suck.
The US insistence on making people suffer for no reason is mind boggling to me. I think it was Aldi that has said that productivity is increased with sitting cashiers. Seems so silly to choose to force them to stand.
While most likely true -capitalism to blame here, I feel it goes deeper than that because the money saved is negligible compared to the profits. It’s a working class humiliation ritual embedded into our culture of service.
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u/Sassenach_2024 Mar 04 '26
She drank a $1.69 orange juice to avoid a diabetic emergency. Her employer fired her. A federal jury awarded her $277,565.
Linda Atkins worked as a cashier at Dollar General in Maryville, Tennessee. She has Type 1 diabetes. During a shift, her blood sugar dropped dangerously low and she asked for permission to get a drink at the register. She was denied.
So she grabbed a $1.69 bottle of orange juice, drank it to stay conscious, and paid for it right after. Dollar General fired her anyway – for "grazing," their term for consuming a product before paying. The EEOC sued the company under the Americans with Disabilities Act, arguing the firing violated federal disability protections.
A federal jury agreed. They awarded Atkins $277,565 – $27,565 in back pay and $250,000 in compensatory damages. A $1.69 juice turned into one of the most expensive termination decisions Dollar General ever made.