Abercrombie and Fitch, a popular clothing store found in shopping malls across the country, has been ordered by an administrative law judge to pay $115,264.42 in civil penalties, legal fees, and personal damages in a discrimination case involving a 14-year-old girl with autism.
In 2005, the daughters of Elizabeth Maxson went back-to-school shopping at a local Mall of America. The younger daughter, who was diagnosed with autism at age 2, required assistance from her older sister in the fitting room of Abercrombie and Fitch. Employees at the store cited a one-person-per-fitting-room company policy and refused to accommodate her needs. Even after her mother's intervention, a call to customer service representatives (who responded "flippantly and rudely"), and an interview with the store's manager, the girls were denied access to the rooms.
Mrs. Maxson filed a suit with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, who ruled that the company "committed an unfair discriminatory practice...when it failed to make a reasonable accommodation to the known disability of [Elizabeth Maxson's daughter]." The judge also commented that Abercrombie and Fitch denied the girl had a disability "until the first day of the hearing" and "[failed] to follow its own written policies on the accommodation of disability."
To read the official summary of the case, visit the Minnesota Department of Human Rights page.
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