He reopened his workers' comp claim—and says Frito-Lay fired him days later
A Frito-Lay warehouse worker says he was fired days after reopening a workers' compensation claim, raising hard questions about injury reporting and retaliation.
Samuel Perez Figueroa filed suit against Rolling Frito-Lay Sales, LP on April 6, 2026, in the Eastern District of North Carolina (Case No. 5:26-cv-00226), alleging the company suspended and then terminated him after he sought treatment and accommodations for a knee injury he says he sustained on the job.
Figueroa was hired in May 2021 as a warehouse material handler and was later promoted to product supply lead. According to the filing, his trouble started on or about February 27, 2024, when he jumped to push in a case on a pallet and felt his right knee pop. He told his supervisor, Pedro Giron, about it that same day, with another employee, Angela Becht, also present for the conversation. His supervisor, he says, never told him he needed to submit a formal injury report.
For months, Figueroa kept working through the pain. An MRI in late October 2024 confirmed a torn meniscus and bone bruising in his right knee. When he brought the diagnosis to human resources in early November, he was told to file a workplace injury report. But his repeated attempts to do so were delayed by management, according to the filing. He finally completed the report on or about November 21, 2024 — and received a written warning the same day.
The sequence that...
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