American, Envoy Airlines Settle Disability Claims for $9.8M

American Airlines and subsidiary Envoy Air agreed to pay roughly $9.8 million to resolve allegations they illegally barred sick and injured employees from returning to work from medical leave unless they were 100 percent healed.

The proposed consent decree between the airlines and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, if approved, would settle a lawsuit the agency filed the same day against the airlines in federal court in Arizona under the Americans with Disabilities Act. American and Envoy since at least Jan. 1, 2009, have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of disability discrimination against a class of workers nationwide by ...