She reported the shove the same day. The filing says no one from HR followed up
A 24-year veteran of Archer Daniels Midland says the agribusiness ignored a workplace shove, then pushed her out, then sabotaged her shot at a fresh start.
Reyna Medina spent more than two decades climbing the ranks at ADM before her August 2021 promotion to Quality Food Safety Manager at the company's Lubbock, Texas plant. According to a lawsuit filed April 27, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Medina v. Archer Daniels Midland Co., No. 5:26-cv-00091), the promotion is also when her professional life began to unravel.
The promotion left her as the only woman among six male managers at the plant, the filing states, and coincided with the arrival of a new plant manager. Medina alleges that during management meetings he stared at her chest rather than her eyes, while male peers spoke over her so consistently that she began raising her hand just to be heard.
The disparate treatment, she says, extended to the basics of daily work. Male colleagues could call in at-will or shut down their departments without issue, the filing states, while she was required to submit formal PTO requests and was admonished for trying to swap a national holiday for an equivalent day off. She says she routinely worked ten- to twelve-hour days, weekends, and even vacations without additional pay.
When Medina raised concerns in a January 2022 management meeting, the lawsuit says the plant manager later pulled her aside privately and told her, "Don't do that." Months later, after she was blamed in front of senior leadership for a canola oil quality issue, her direct supervisor allegedly acknowledged what was happening, telling her, "I think you've been set up as the scapegoat."
Medina says she escalated the matter to a Food Safety Manager at headquarters at least ten times. On one call, the lawsuit alleges, a senior woman in the quality organization advised her to "buckle up" because "it's a man's world."
Then came what may be the most arresting allegation for HR readers. On December 20, 2023, Medina says a male coworker shoved her aggressively from the side while she reviewed log sheets in the flour department. She reported it the same day. According to the filing, no one from HR or leadership ever followed up, and the coworker remains employed at ADM.
What followed, the lawsuit says, looked a lot like retaliation. In January 2024, ADM reassigned Medina to report directly to the very plant manager she had complained about. A favorable performance review and salary bump arrived in March. Weeks later, she was placed on a Colleague Improvement Plan with no prior notice and no documented performance issues. She was terminated on July 19, 2024.
The lawsuit adds an unusual third count: tortious interference. Medina says a Buffalo Springs Lake manager was on the verge of hiring her in September 2025 — texting that he looked forward to speaking again — until he called her former plant manager for a reference. Communication, she says, went cold.
The allegations have not been tested in court. ADM has not yet filed a response, and no ruling has been issued.
