Former Walmart Worker Sues Over Disability Discrimination, Failure to Accommodate

Merianny Brett, a former asset protection worker at Walmart, filed a complaint against Wal-mart Associates, Inc. in California Superior Court for Contra Costa County on March 11, 2026, alleging disability discrimination and failure to accommodate.

The filing adds Brett's name to a growing list of plaintiffs who have taken legal action against the nation's largest private employer over workplace treatment of workers with disabilities. Details about the specific disability alleged, the accommodations requested, and the timeline of Brett's employment remain contained in the complaint itself, which has not been made publicly available beyond the initial filing notice.

The Contra Costa County suit arrives less than six months after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a separate federal lawsuit against Walmart over incidents at its Mt. Pleasant store. In that case, the EEOC alleged that Walmart violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to accommodate a cart pusher who required a job coach due to his intellectual disability and by subjecting him and a co-worker to a hostile work environment. According to the EEOC, supervisors called the employees "stupid" and "slow," and one employee reported that his supervisor called him a "retard" and shut the store's door on him, sending him home early. The EEOC further alleged that Walmart refused to speak with job coaches assisting the employee, even though the coaching came at no cost to the company. A settlement could not be reached through a pre-litigation process before the EEOC moved to federal court.

Walmart responded to the EEOC lawsuit with a statement: "We don't tolerate discrimination of any kind and provide reasonable accommodations to thousands of associates. We will defend the company against this litigation."

The company has faced discrimination claims on other fronts as well. A proposed nationwide class action filed on July 16, 2021, named Jacqueline Ramos as lead plaintiff and challenged Walmart's criminal history screening practices, alleging the company "denies employment to many qualified applicants because of unrelated and/or stale criminal history" and "fails to account for evidence of rehabilitation or mitigating circumstances." That complaint, which asserted claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, described Ramos as having completed a six-month internship with a Walmart subsidiary performing the same work she later sought to do directly for Walmart. The three matters are legally distinct, filed in different courts under different legal theories, and involve separate plaintiffs and locations.

For Brett, the central questions in the Contra Costa County filing center on what specific accommodation Walmart allegedly denied and whether the company engaged in the legally required interactive process to explore alternatives. Those details, along with the statutory claims and requested relief, will become clearer as the litigation proceeds.