Jury slams trucking company with $36M verdict for deaf driver

A federal jury in Omaha awarded more than $36 million in an ADA suit that claimed a truck driver was wrongfully denied a job because he is deaf.

Victor Robinson applied for a job as a truck driver with Werner Enterprises in 2016.

At the time, Robinson had completed truck driving school and obtained his commercial driver’s license. He had also been granted an exemption from federal physical qualification standards applicable to interstate drivers.

Deaf driver has application rejected

Werner rejected his application, saying he would not be able to complete the company’s over-the-road training. More specifically, it maintained that he would have to take his eyes off the road in order to communicate with the training instructor.

The EEOC disagreed, and in 2018 it filed an ADA lawsuit on Robinson’s behalf. In the suit, the agency accused Werner and Drivers Management LLC of violating the statute by refusing to hire Robinson.

Just two months earlier, the agency had filed a separate suit against Werner on behalf of another deaf applicant for a job as a truck driver. In that suit, it similarly alleged an unlawful refusal to hire under the ADA. The cases were later consolidated for resolution. In the other suit, a jury reached a verdict for Werner in June.

Similar case, very different result

Robinson’s jury did not do the same, instead reaching a mammoth verdict in his favor.

Two particularly significant developments took place before the jury reached its verdict.

First, in late March of this year the Nebraska federal district court that heard the case denied a defense motion for summary judgment on the ADA allegation.

Werner argued that Robinson was not qualified for the job, and it further asserted that it was not required to accept his exemption. But the court decided those arguments were not strong enough to warrant summary judgment in its favor.

The court also said it was for a jury to decide whether there was a reasonable accommodation that would enable Robinson to complete Werner’s over-the-road training program.

Then, at the end of August the court granted the EEOC’s motion for a partial directed verdict, finding there was no question that Werner declined to hire Robinson because he is deaf. Thus, it took the issue of causation out of the jury’s hands.

Jury drops the hammer

The next day, the jury needed only about two hours to return a verdict against Werner. It awarded Robinson $75,000 in damages for “emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life.”

It tacked on a remarkable $36 million to that amount in punitive damages.

That amount is likely to be reduced in light of the ADA’s $300,000 cap on damages. (Federal law prohibits courts from telling jurors about this limit.)

The verdict sends a strong signal regarding the ADA’s ban on disability bias – and warns employers not to assume that employees with disabilities are unqualified.

Accommodation tips

In January, the EEOC released an updated resource for employers regarding applicants and employees with hearing disabilities.

Some of the more notable points included in the document:

• Before a job offer is made, an employer may not ask a job applicant whether they have (or have had) a hearing condition or related treatment.
• Job applicants are not required to disclose the existence of a hearing impairment unless they need a related accommodation to complete the process of applying.
• If an applicant discloses the existence of hearing impairment after a conditional job offer is extended but before the job begins, the employer may ask questions about the impairment and ask whether an accommodation will be needed.
• Potential accommodations for applicants and employees with hearing impairments include sign-language interpreters, assistive technology, written memos and notes, and note-taking assistance.
• Employers may exclude people with hearing impairments from jobs for safety reasons only if employing them would pose a direct threat, which is a significant risk of substantial harm that cannot be eliminated via reasonable accommodation.