Forklift operator says Unilever let him go three days after ER trip
Three days after a forklift operator left work for an ER visit tied to a workplace foot injury, Unilever allegedly fired him.
That is the account laid out in Salazar v. Unilever Manufacturing (US), LLC, No. 2:26-cv-04081, filed April 20, 2026 in the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The lawsuit accuses Unilever Manufacturing (US), LLC of disability discrimination, failing to accommodate a worker with Type-1 diabetes, and retaliating against him for exercising rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Missouri's workers' compensation law. Unilever has not yet responded, and nothing in the case has been decided.
According to the filing, Zachariah Salazar started at Unilever's Jefferson City, Missouri plant in June 2024, working the second shift — 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. — as a forklift operator loading pallets onto semi-trucks. On December 13, 2024, he says he slammed his right foot into an unguarded machine part. He reported the injury right away, the filing says, but Unilever allegedly did not notify its workers' compensation carrier or the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations until March 5, 2025. Missouri law gives employers five days.
That delay, Salazar alleges, left him continuing to work without authorized medical treatment for nearly three months, until the carrier finally cleared him to see a doctor on March 11, 2025. The physician wanted an MRI before doing anything further. The MRI was not scheduled until April 18.
In the meantime, Salazar says, something else was on Unilever's desk. In February 2025, he had asked for a workplace accommodation — up to two as-needed days off per month to manage flare-ups tied to his Type-1 diabetes, a condition he says leaves him with a compromised immune system. His doctor put it in writing.
Then came March 27. Salazar says the pain in his foot became too much to push through, so he left mid-shift and went to the emergency room, where he received a Toradol injection. He says he told his supervisors exactly why he was leaving. Three days later, on March 30, a supervisor called him at home and told him he was fired — specifically, the filing says, for leaving work early to get that emergency treatment.
For HR leaders, the sequence is the story. Salazar had a known disability, a documented accommodation request sitting unresolved, and an open workers' comp injury. Firing an employee standing at that intersection is the scenario employment lawyers routinely flag, because it hands a plaintiff multiple overlapping theories of liability tied to a single decision.
The filing also points to something easy to overlook in the day-to-day: Missouri's five-day injury-reporting rule. Salazar argues the missed deadline is what kept him from getting prompt medical care in the months that followed.
Salazar is seeking reinstatement or front pay, back pay, compensatory damages above $75,000, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees. The allegations remain untested, and Unilever will have its chance to respond in court.
