Starbucks Corp. has agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the company fired a Seattle barista with bipolar disorder.
The EEOC said Wednesday that Starbucks gave Christine Drake extra training and support while she worked as a barista in its Queen Anne-neighborhood coffee shop for more than two years, starting in 2001. But in her third year, new management at the coffee shop discontinued the extra support and then fired her, which the EEOC said violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.
