On Wednesday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that is has secured the largest jury verdict in the agency’s history. The $240 million verdict stems from a disability discrimination and abuse case involving a turkey company. While this is an important accomplishment for the EEOC, it is bittersweet as it is a reminder that many people with disabilities are harmed by illegal discrimination in the workplace here in New Jersey and throughout the country.

The EEOC’s disability discrimination lawsuit accused Hill County Farms, which was doing business as Henry’s Turkey Service, of subjecting 32 men who have intellectual disabilities to not only discrimination but also severe abuse from 2007 to 2009 at a labor camp in Iowa. The EEOC actually believes the company has been mistreating disabled workers at the camp for decades, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the case was limited to the company’s last two years of operation per federal law.

Over a period of about 40 years, this company reportedly sent 1500 intellectually disabled men from Texas to Iowa where they worked in a meat processing plant.

They were paid only 41 cents an hour. They were housed in a bunkhouse that had substandard living conditions, and which was finally shut down in 2009 when reporters at the Des Moines Register learned of it and began asking the state about the company’s lack of any license to care for people with disabilities.

The men, who worked eviscerating turkeys, were physically abused and treated poorly daily, according to the lawsuit.

The men who worked at the plant from 2007 to 2009 were each awarded $5.5 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages. In September, in a separate case, the company was also ordered to pay the men $1.3 million for the disability-based wage discrimination.

The victims in this case, unfortunately, are not expected to actually recieve the entirety of their jury awards because the company only has $4 million in assets. However, the EEOC is reportedly working to access as much compensation as possible for these men.

An expert witness who testified for EEOC, Dr. Sue Gant, was quoted by the Press-Citizen explaining that the case is still very important regardless of whether the judgement can be completely satisfied. She called the verdict “a groundbreaking advancement in that it demonstrates that the men have value that is equal to people without disabilities.”

Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Jury Awards $240 Million for Long-Term Abuse of Workers with Intellectual Disabilities,” May 1, 2013

Source: press-citizen.com, “Mentally-disabled Henry’s workers awarded $240 million,” May 1, 2013