Walgreens
MIAMI – A longtime Walgreens employee is suing the popular retail pharmacy chain in Florida federal court, alleging her managers have been drastically cutting back her and other older employees’ hours due to their age.
Plaintiff Dione Cooley, 57, filed her lawsuit July 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.
She alleges in her 19-page filing that Walgreens Co. has violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, among other state labor and whistleblower laws. The ADEA forbids employment discrimination against anyone at least 40 years old, or older, in the U.S.
Cooley contends Walgreens has not only discriminated against her due to her age, but also retaliated against her for her reporting and opposing of the company’s alleged violations.
“Throughout her nearly three-decade tenure with Walgreens, Plaintiff has consistently performed her job duties with professionalism, dedication, and competence,” the lawsuit states. “Prior to her complaints of discrimination and retaliation, she was never counseled, reprimanded, or subjected to any disciplinary action, and she was regularly praised by both customers and coworkers for her reliability and strong work ethic.”
According to the filing, Cooley has been employed with Walgreens for about 28 years, since on or about Oct. 23, 1996. She works as a regular clerk and inventory clerk at Walgreens Store #3493 in Miami.
Cooley claims her work schedule was created by an internal software program for many years. Her schedule remained steady, typically running Monday through Thursday and Saturdays from 6:45 AM to 3:15 PM, totaling 40 hours per week.
That all changed after an October 2023 meeting, in which Cooley and other senior employees were told their work hours would be reduced.
“The Plaintiff and the other employees, who were also over the age of 40 years, voiced their concerns Walgreens would violate its Fair Scheduling Guidelines and labor policies if it reduced the work hours of Walgreens’ senior employees,” the complaint states.
According to the filing, Store Manager Rohan Sewell became “visibly angry” and began retaliating against Cooley after the meeting, along with the other older employees, by reducing their hours.
Cooley claims her hours were “drastically cut” from 40 to 24 hours per week – without any performance-based justification.
To make matters worse, she claims those hours were reassigned to “significantly younger and less experienced” employees under the age of 40.
“Clearly, the senior employees were targeted, wrongfully and illegally subjected to a pattern of age-based discrimination,” the complaint states.
Cooley alleges she also observed that the scheduling software continued to automatically assign her a full-time schedule – but that Sewell routinely “intervened” and manually altered the schedules, deliberately reducing her hours.
“These deliberate overrides happened repeatedly over multiple scheduling cycles,” she noted
Cooley claims she continued to raise concerns about the discrimination and scheduling violations, but was ignored. District and regional managers falsely asserted she “agreed” to the reduction in hours, the filing states.
Eventually, Cooley made formal internal complaints to Walgreens’ Human Resources Department in Chicago in early 2024.
Cooley alleges that about this time, some of the senior employees attempted to pick up shifts at other Walgreens locations, to make up for the hours lost. However, a Walgreens district manager intervened, telling other stores not to schedule the senior employees, she alleges.
“Plaintiff also became aware of coercive directives from Walgreens management aimed at discouraging coworkers from associating with or supporting her,” the complaint states, adding that an assistant manager told a coworker that she needed to “distance herself” from Cooley to receive more hours.
In March 2024, Cooley filed a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The retaliation “intensified,” Cooley claims.
“In response to Plaintiff’s protected complaints, Walgreens retaliated by: a. Further reducing her hours; b. Blocking her from picking up available shifts at nearby Walgreens stores; c. Instructing other store managers not to schedule her; and d. Disseminating false information suggesting Plaintiff ‘agreed’ to the reduced schedule,” the complaint states.
She claims that since October 2023, the “discriminatory and retaliatory work environment” has included disparaging remarks, schedule manipulation, denial of accommodations, social isolation, and economic deprivation.
“Mrs. Cooley continues to be employed with Walgreens, and Walgreens continues to demonstrate a pattern of callous disregard for anti-discrimination, anti-retaliation, and whistleblower protection laws,” the complaint states.
And despite the company’s “internal representations” that she would not lose her full-time benefits, she was stripped of her health insurance coverage in January 2025, she contends.
“The termination of Plaintiff’s health benefits had devastating consequences on her physical and financial well-being,” Cooley writes in her complaint. “She immediately lost access to critical medical care, including echocardiograms, heart monitoring, stress testing, and treatments for her autoimmune condition, care that had previously been covered under her full-time employee health plan. As a result, Mrs. Cooley was forced to cancel the necessary medical appointments and could not afford the high deductibles under her individual replacement plan.
“Although she now relies on the replacement plan for basic coverage, she struggles to afford and access the care she needs, which has further exacerbated her medical conditions and compounded her emotional and economic harm.”
Cooley seeks reinstatement of full-time hours and benefits, or an award of future lost wages; back pay and front pay; punitive damages; compensatory damages; prejudgment interest; and attorneys’ fees.
She also asks the federal court to declare Walgreens’ actions illegal, and to grant a permanent injunction enjoining them from such discriminatory practices.
The Law Offices of T. Walls Blye in Miami is representing Cooley in the lawsuit.
