An ally fights back
Shawn Cody Former employee sues Plano company for unlawful retaliation, claiming he was fired for reporting anti-LGBTQ behavior CAROLINE SAVOIE | Contributing Writer CarolineLSavoie@gmail.com After Shawn Cody, a 40-year-old McKinney resident, reported that his supervisor at Ferguson Enterprises made racist and homophobic comments, a representative from the company’s Human Resources department fired him.
Now Cody is alleging in a recently-filed lawsuit that he was unlawfully fired as retaliation for reporting his boss’s anti-LGBTQ comments and behavior. “This is always on my mind,” said Cody, who has a 12-year-old daughter with a heart condition. “When I was getting fired, I told them I was going to lose my health insurance.” He said he told the company representatives, “You may have just killed my daughter.” He said HR representative Sandy Tinkham told him to get temporary health insurance, and he had to pay $1,200 a month for it. “We had to have insurance on her,” Cody said. “Her medicine was between $500 and $600 out of pocket without insurance.
I needed health insurance. I needed that job.” Cody was a warehouse manager at Ferguson Enterprises’ waterworks division in McKinney which sells underground construction equipment.
He worked at the branch from December 2018 to May 2023. He said he was promoted twice a year, every year, and that he won an award for associate of the year in September 2021.
