Hooters Waitress Sues, Saying Brain Surgery Scar Cost Her Job

Last year, Sandra Lupo was a Hooters waitress, working - even while recovering from brain surgery - to put herself though nursing school. Now, she's a former Hooters waitress and she's suing the restaurant chain in federal court, because they allegedly pushed her out of her job for not wearing a wig over her brain surgery scar.

The 27 year old woman had worked at a Hooters in St. Peters Missouri for about seven years before she took time off of work in the summer of 2012 to have a "cranial mass" removed, according to ABC News. On July 16, 2012 she had recovered enough from the surgery that her doctors told her she could go back to work.

According to court documents, Lupo's manager met with her and the regional manager before she returned to work at Hooters. At the meeting, the regional manager told her she would have to wear a wig at work. Lupo said that "she did not have a wig and that she could not afford a wig, as they range in cost between several hundred and several thousands of dollars," states the lawsuit.

When she reportedly tried to wear a borrowed wig, it caused her too much stress and it hindered her scar from healing. After it was obvious Lupo wouldn't be wearing a wig to work, her manager reportedly reduced her hours until she was making so little that it would make her ineligible for unemployment pay.

The suit asks for unspecified financial damages for discrimination, and was originally filed at St. Charles County Circuit Court until Hooters requested it be moved to federal court last week, according to the Daily Mail.

Maricia McCormick, associate professor of law at St. Louis University, spoke to the ABC News, saying that while the surgery qualifies Lupo as having a physical disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the fact that she worked for Hooters complicates the case. The Americans With Disabilities Acts disallows employers from discriminating against people based on their disability. But Hooters may have a unique argument regarding Lupo.

"In the disability context, if Hooters is to say she's not as attractive now without this wig, if they're selling her attractiveness that might be a real function of her job and mean she isn't qualified by the Americans with Disabilities Act," said McCormick.

In other words, Hooters' own blunt vices may save itself from eating crow.