She allegedly found out she was fired when her badge stopped working

The EEOC is suing Butterball, alleging the company fired a long-tenured employee undergoing cancer treatment rather than accommodate her disability.

The federal lawsuit, filed on March 31 in the Eastern District of North Carolina (EEOC v. Butterball, LLC, Case No. 5:26-cv-00202), paints a troubling picture for any HR department that outsources its leave administration. According to the agency's filing, Butterball did not just fall short on accommodating an employee with breast cancer — it allegedly handed her off to a third-party administrator and never looked back.

Marie Marc had worked at Butterball's turkey processing facility in Mount Olive, North Carolina, for more than a decade. She was hired in January 2013 as a Second Processing Employee. Marc identifies as Haitian and speaks almost exclusively Haitian Creole, relying on her daughter to translate when communicating with English speakers.

In August 2023, Marc was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed time off for chemotherapy. With her daughter's help, she called Butterball on August 24 to share her diagnosis and request leave. According to the EEOC, the company told her to contact Voya Financial, its third-party benefits administrator, to process the request.

What followed, according to the filing, was a bureaucratic runaround. Voya directed Marc and her daughter to an online claims process, where they submitted a Critical Illness/Specified...

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