A pharmacy in Denver hired staff with hemophilia then fired them if they refused to pay for its pricey medications to treat it, a federal agency lawsuit says
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- A pharmacy in Denver discriminated against workers who didn't buy its expensive medication, the EEOC said.
- The pharmacy deliberately hired workers with hemophilia and "pressured" them to get their medication from it, the EEOC claimed.
- The EEOC accused Factor One Source Pharmacy of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act in a lawsuit.
A pharmacy in Denver deliberately hired workers with hemophilia and pushed them to buy its expensive medications — or it fired them, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a lawsuit.
Factor One Source Pharmacy "unlawfully" asked job applicants about their hemophilia, their children's hemophilia, and the medications they took "so it could recruit individuals who had hemophilia or had family members with hemophilia," the EEOC said in a press release.
The pharmacy then "pressured" employees to use its services to get expensive hemophilia medication, the EEOC said in the lawsuit. They were also asked to change their medications to ones that were more profitable for the pharmacy, the EEOC's suit added.
Their employment was "contingent upon them filling their costly hemophilia medications through Factor One," the EEOC said in the lawsuit.
"Employees who refused were fired or laid off, while employees who used Factor One's pharmacy for hemophilia medications kept their jobs, even if they had worse performance reviews than employees who were let go," the EEOC said in the press release.
In some cases, employees felt forced to resign because of how they were treated after they refused to change their hemophilia medication, the EEOC said in the lawsuit.
The pharmacy also shared information about which workers had hemophilia and which medications they were taking with their coworkers, the EEOC said in the lawsuit.
Hemophilia is a bleeding disorder which stops blood from clotting properly.
The pharmacy's actions violated both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the EEOC said in the press release. The violations occurred under previous ownership, the EEOC said.
Under a settlement signed in early June, the pharmacy will pay $515,000 to affected workers in back pay and compensatory damages and its new owners have agreed to not employ or contract with the company's prior CEO and owner.
Factor One did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.