Armando Gutierrez a 31-year-old last week filed a lawsuit against a chain restaurant ‘The Big Biscuit‘ in the U.S District Court in Kansas, Armando claims that he got fired soon after he disclosed his HIV status to his manager at The Big Biscuit restaurant where he had worked at for over a year as a server.
Armando disclosed his HIV status because he needed to enter into a state program to get medications for HIV, and to do so there has to be a signed form verifying that he did not get Health insurance from his workplace which prompted him to open up to the manager so the form could be signed.
Afterward, upon his arrival the next day he received a letter of transfer to another branch where he was required to come to work on Sundays, of which he refused due to family obligations and as a result of his refusal, he got fired.
Armando’s lawsuit against The Big biscuit restaurant is based on the basis that the restaurant violated the ADA law that is ‘’The Americans with disabilities ACT ‘’, by firing him because of his HIV positive status.
The ADA is a civil rights law that came into law in the U.S in 1990, that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all area of public life.
The law protects people living with physical ability and thanks to the ruling of the supreme court in 1998 HIV/AIDS patient was added to list , it states that ‘’ persons living with HIV disease, either symptomatic or asymptomatic, have physical impairments that substantially limit one or more major life activities and thus are protected by ADA’’.
Therefore, no judgment is to be passed on any of these victims based on their disability. Armando’s lawsuit thereby demanded financial compensation from the restaurant listed as back pay, front pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and his attorneys’ fees.
Armando claimed that the situation affected him emotionally, his lawyer Mr. Dugan also added that ‘’first he was upset about the diagnosis, he was upset at work. The fact that he was unable to continue in his job just further undermined his stability ‘’. Armando has a new job no and is on the road of recovery.
This case isn’t a peculiar one as there have been more issues like this, people getting dismissed from work after their HIV status was discovered.