Judge: Texas firm must pay disabled workers $1.4M

The judgment against Henry's Turkey Service in Goldthwaite is the third of more than $1 million against the company after state authorities in 2009 shut down a dilapidated bunkhouse in rural Iowa where the men had lived since the 1970s.

The 32 employees had been paid $65 per month to work the processing line at a huge turkey plant in West Liberty after Henry's improperly deducted fees for room and board, care, transportation and other expenses out of their pay and Social Security checks, U.S. District Judge Charles Wolle ruled. The amount they were paid never changed during the 30-year period they worked at the plant, regardless of whether they worked more than 40 hours per week, he found.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which alleged that Hill Country Farms violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by paying the workers discriminatory wages. Wolle ordered a trial in March on the rest of the claims in the EEOC's lawsuit, which alleges that the men faced a hostile work environment, harassment, verbal and physical abuse and other "adverse terms and conditions of employment" because of their disabilities.

Hill Country Farms, which did business as Henry's Turkey Service, offered little resistance to EEOC's wage claims. The company had been on contract to supply workers to the plant starting in the 1970s when it was owned by Louis Rich Foods. By 2008, the company's contract with owner West Liberty Foods was worth more than $500,000 for work performed by the men in the evisceration department.

Wolle said the company "engaged in unlawful and discriminatory pay practices" that deprived workers of wages they earned. He said the $1.37 million represents how much more the intellectually disabled workers should have been paid between February 2007 and February 2009 for their work, based on wage rates paid to similarly-situated and experienced workers. Despite their disabilities, the workers "performed as productively and effectively as non-disabled workers doing the same jobs," he ruled, and testimony showed they even helped train their replacements when Henry's Turkey was winding down operations.