‘Obese’ Worker Wins Appeal Against Xerox

After more than a decade of legal jousting with Xerox, Catherine McDermott is set to start work here Sept. 9 at a job she was denied in 1974 because of her weight.

McDermott, now 67, acted as her own attorney in pursuing her claim that Xerox violated New York state’s Human Rights Law.

The state Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, ruled in May that Xerox had no right to deny her employment because a physician diagnosed her condition as “gross obesity.”

Xerox was ordered to hire her, compensate her for lost income and pay her $1,000 for “hurt and humiliation.”

Xerox spokesman Thomas C. Abbott would not say what compensation she’ll receive, but McDermott estimated it at about $100,000. She said she will get full insurance benefits and won’t have to take another physical. Xerox also will pay her moving expenses from Staten Island to Rochester.

Sought by Xerox

McDermott was working for the District of Columbia in 1974 when she was sought by Xerox for a job in Rochester as a senior business systems consultant at $1,900 a month.

She is 5 foot, 6 inches tall, and she weighed 249 pounds in 1974. According to tables published by Metropolitan Life Insurance, that’s 90 to 130 pounds overweight.

During a pre-employment physical, done in Washington for Xerox by a doctor for Executive Health Examiners, McDermott’s obesity was listed as “abnormal” and she was termed “medically not acceptable.” The decision was endorsed by Dr. C. Craig Wright, director of health services for Xerox.

The company’s position was that “gross obesity” put McDermott at risk for health and emotional problems and made her a poor risk for short- and long-term disability and life insurance programs. She says she was told that she had to lose 90 pounds.

She worked for the District of Columbia until 1980, when she moved to Staten Island to take another job. She says other employers had no complaints about her weight.

McDermott said she harbors no ill feelings toward Xerox. “I’m only against the doctor, not Xerox,” she said.

McDermott wrote and typed her own legal briefs and said her major expenses were postage and “Xeroxing costs.”