Dwarf Employee Wins Lawsuit Against Starbucks

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"The Starbucks Coffee Company has paid $75,000 to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to settle a lawsuit for unlawfully denying a reasonable accommodation to a woman with dwarfism, according to a press release.

According to a press release from the commission, Sallard told employers during training that she could use a stool or stepladder to do her job." - El Paso Times

"A woman with dwarfism"? Wouldn't it be less cumbersome to simply write "a dwarf", or whatever the politically-correct term is for an adult individual who is vertically-challenged?

I'm reminded of Dirty Harry's maxim in the movie "Magnum Force": A man has got to know his limitations. Let me rewrite this wise saying to make it politically-correct: An empowered female little person can reach for the stars, but she has got to know her limitations.

If you are a dwarf you probably shouldn't try out for the NBA, and working as a barista for Starbucks might also be out of the question. If a tall Chocolate Creme Frappuccino is taller than you, don't work at Starbucks.

If you need a stool to look a customer in the belly, you shouldn't be employed at Starbucks. A dwarf toting a stool at Starbucks would be a safety hazard to her co-workers.

It takes skill and dexterity for a barista to create the specialty coffees at Starbucks; if Elsa can fix a Java Chip Frappuccino while standing on a stepladder she belongs in a freaking circus. My bad! I apologize, I didn't mean to imply that the only place dwarfs can work is in a circus.

Starbucks was in a no-win situation: Fire Sallard and they get sued under the ADA, don't fire the little person and she will sue if she falls down from her stool and breaks her neck.

I hope Starbucks has learned a lesson: Don't hire any dwarfs.

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Robert Paul Reyes is a NewsBlaze writer on Politics, Pop Culture and Pointless Pontificating. Contact him by writing to NewsBlaze.