A new lawsuit, filed by an employee of the motivational speaker Tony Robbins, alleges that Robbins’s company, Robbins Research International, along with Robbins and his wife Bonnie, discriminated against the employee who requested reasonable accommodations be met for her recovery from coronavirus.
The suit, filed in New York federal court, claims the Robbinses violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) among other federal laws when they denied her petition to slowly return to work after suffering from a severe bout of coronavirus which left her in a medically induced coma in April. In addition to being denied working-hours-related accommodation, the plaintiff alleges her work email and other access have been restricted since July, making it impossible for her to work.
Complicating matters, Robbins allegedly intervened in the employee’s medical provision while she was in a coma, an action Mr. Robbins discussed during a podcast in which the plaintiff was able to be identified by listeners. He has also been an outspoken critic of medical responses to Covid-19 and has downplayed the issue, requiring people to continue to come to work and attend in-person events as the virus first raged across the US in the early spring, something the plaintiff complained about.
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