18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 61 in situations where an individual who is qualified on paper requires an accommodation in order to be able to perform the essential functions of the job." Id . Thus, a qualified employee with a disability who can perform the essential functions of his job without an accommodation had no right to request one simply because it might improve the quality of his life outside of work. Id . at *9-10. The Court reasoned that Kimmons requested a different shift schedule not for the benefit of his performance, but the convenience of his commute. Accordingly, the Court held that Defendant was not required to grant the request for an extension of the shift change. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendant’s motion for summary judgment and denied the EEOC’s motion. EEOC v. DHL Express (USA), Inc., Case No. No. 10-CV-6139 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 30, 2021). The EEOC filed an action on behalf of 83 Black truck drivers alleging that Defendant assigned them to more dangerous or demanding routes, tasked them with more arduous dock work, and segregated them from white drivers in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (“Title VII”). Id . at 2. Twenty-one of the drivers intervened and additionally asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Defendant moved for summary judgment as to the EEOC’s claims as well as the intervenors’ individual claims. The Court granted in part the motion as to several intervenors’ individual claims, and denied the motion as to the EEOC’s claims and the remaining intervenors’ claims. Defendant’s drivers typically picked-up and delivered parcels along routes within certain service areas. They also perform dock assignments such as loading, unloading, and sorting freight and letters. The EEOC and the intervenors claimed that white employees were rarely assigned the hard manual labor that Black drivers were assigned, and that Black drivers were often moved to the most difficult, dangerous, and least desirable routes at several of Defendant’s locations throughout the state. Defendant contended that neither assigning a driver to a more dangerous or arduous route, nor assigning a driver to more strenuous dock work, was an adverse employment action under Title VII. Defendant argued that as delivering and picking up packages and performing dock work were tasks within the scope of a driver’s duties, a driver did not suffer a materially adverse employment action when the driver was assigned to perform one route or dock task versus another route or task. Id . at 64. The Court disagreed. It determined that when the summary judgment record was viewed in the light most favorable to the EEOC, there was evidence to support a reasonable inference that assigning a driver to a route in a predominantly Black, non-white, higher-crime area was a significantly negative work condition that might fairly be characterized as objectively creating a hardship on the driver. Further, the Court noted that most employees found routes in predominantly Black, non-white, higher-crime areas to be more difficult, and that the drivers offered evidence they were subjected to significantly different working conditions and experiences when they worked on routes in predominantly Black, non-white, higher-crime areas. Id . at 65-66. Additionally, the Court found evidence to support a reasonable inference that being assigned to a route in a predominantly Black, higher-crime area was objectively degrading, as supervisors informed Black drivers that they were assigned to such routes based solely on their skin color, and one driver alleged that he was laughed at by white drivers who bragged that they never had to drive routes in such areas. Id . at 68. Moreover, when Black drivers complained to supervisors based on their observations that white drivers were not assigned to routes in predominantly Black, higher-crime areas, supervisors tried minimize the complaints. Id . at 69. Aside from the claims of several drivers, the Court ruled that the EEOC sufficiently established a triable issue as to whether being assigned routes in a higher-crime area was a significantly negative work condition that might fairly be characterized as objectively creating a hardship on the driver’s employment conditions. The Court also determined that the EEOC created sufficient issues of fact as to whether being assigned to a route that required significantly more arduous work constituted an adverse employment action. The Court likewise found evidence of pretext, as Defendant could not provide evidence that it honestly believed that the routes at issue were assigned based on legitimate, non-discriminatory factors. For these reasons, the Court denied Defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to the EEOC’s claims and the remaining intervenors’ discrimination claims. EEOC v. Heart Of Cardon LLC , 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 211944 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 29, 2021). The EEOC filed an action on behalf of the charging party, Marsha Castellano, a Certified Nurse Aide, alleging that she lost function of her left arm after she was injured while working and Defendant refused to provide her a reasonable accommodation in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”). During discovery, the EEOC filed a motion to compel production of documents and information in response to an interrogatory request seeking Defendant’s most recent annual report, appraisal, or other business valuation, federal and state tax returns, financial forecasts, financial statements, resale valuations, statements of fair market value, and statements of revenues and liabilities. Id . at *4-5. Defendant objected on the grounds that the documents were not relevant to