Former Office Depot Employee Files a Lawsuit Relating to the 2019 Odessa Mass Shooting

A former employee of Office Depot in Odessa is suing the company for terminating her for the trauma they caused her during the 2019 Odessa Mass Shooting.

According to CBS 7, Sara Luebano was an employee of Office Depot on the day of the mass shooting in Odessa.

As stated in a statement by her lawyers, NLC Law Group in Houston, she was forced to go outside and ask police what was going on with the situation when an officer told her to go back in the store and lock it.

The statement also says her managers had conflicting information they gave to her about whether to lock the store or not.

Luebano's lawyers say that she reached out to human resources about how things were handled and once her managers were contacted by HR, they put her on a Performance Improvement Plan which was the first time she had been disciplined in her 3 years of employment.

“These were tasks and obligations she was accused of failing to fulfill on days she was not working, days she wasn’t scheduled to work, and days she was on vacation. So, it’s kind of hard to fail a task that you couldn’t have been assigned during a vacation. So, it’s just laughable. If you’re going to set someone up, you’re going to have to be better at it,” said Luebano’s lawyer, Lucy Chukwurah.

Luebano refused to sign the paperwork for her disciplinary action and because of the incident had to go on medical leave in June of 2020. When she was released to go back to work with restrictions this past January, she was told she had been fired.

Luebano's lawsuit accuses Office Depot of retaliation, discrimination based on disability, Family Medical Leave Act interference, and termination.