SHRM responds to ADA lawsuit

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) this week filed a response to a civil lawsuit, Torres v. Society for Human Resource Management, made in a US district court in Virginia on Dec. 6 of last year claiming that the HR industry group violated federal and state laws when it rescinded a candidate’s job offer after the candidate requested her medical service dog work alongside her.

The complaint alleges that SHRM “brazenly disregarded its statutory obligations” related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Virginia Human Rights Act by rescinding an employment offer to a candidate for a senior role in its product management department after the candidate made a request to help manage her Type 1 diabetes.

SHRM, in a 22-page response to the complaint, denied it violated either the ADA or the state statute.

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, Fiona Torres, was offered a role as a senior specialist in 2024. Torres alleges that she informed SHRM of her reasonable accommodation request to bring her trained medical alert service dog with her to work once she received the job offer.

The dog, according to Torres in the lawsuit, can “detect and alert her when her blood sugar is dangerously out of range” and is superior to technological interventions. Prior to the aid of her service animal, Torres said she “blacked out approximately 10 times a year” from “sudden blood glucose level changes.”

SHRM in court documents affirmed that its hiring team informed Torres that “the information submitted did not appear to support that Ms. Torres required a service dog to perform the essential duties for the position,” and denied her “preferred accommodation to have her service dog with her” but “offered her multiple alternative accommodations.”

SHRM brought up in its response to the civil complaint instances when the plaintiff was away from her service animal “such as when he is being groomed and when she believed the environment she was entering was unsafe for her service dog” and pointed to “multiple alternative accommodations” that it offered to her request including “the use of her continuous glucose monitoring system (“CGM”) at work, breaks as needed to check her blood sugar levels, and the ability to use her insulin pump and consume food or drink as needed at or near her work station.”

This disability discrimination lawsuit follows another employment lawsuit the HR membership organization faced, Mohamed vs. the Society for Human Resource Management. A Colorado jury found SHRM liable in a race discrimination and retaliation claim brought on by a former employee. A jury awarded the plaintiff $11.5 million in damages in that case.