A suit against a North Carolina trucking company that rebuffed the job application of a deaf driver will proceed after the carrier’s request for summary judgment was denied.
Transportation Management Group, which does business as Wilson Logistics, had requested that the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina dismiss the suit that was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August 2024.
But on Wednesday, Judge Catherine Eagles rejected the request for summary judgment, setting the case on the road to either a settlement or a jury trial.
Jerrell McCrary, described in Judge Eagles’ decision as “an experienced truck driver with a commercial driver’s license and a hearing exemption,” had called Transportation Management about a job in 2023. “Because he is deaf, he used a sign language interpretation service to make the call,” Judge Eagles said in a recap of the interactions between McCrary and the company. “But the recruiter who answered the phone quickly said, ‘we cannot accept that here,’ and when Mr. McCrary called back, the recruiter immediately hung up.”
The EEOC filed suit on behalf of McCrary. Judge Eagles’ decision is based on her finding that there may be enough evidence Transportation Management discriminated against McCrary that summary judgement in favor of the carrier is not warranted.
Judge sees evidence of discrimination
“The EEOC has proferred directed evidence that Transportation Management’s recruiter (identified elsewhere as Christopher Hilles) refused to entertain a serious job inquiry from a qualified person was deaf, which all agree is a qualifying disability,” Judge Eagles wrote. “Mr. Hilles’ statements and actions during the calls themselves can support a finding that Transportation Management discriminates against a deaf person interested in employment.”
Among the arguments rejected by Judge Eagles was that because Hilles was a subordinate and not a “decision maker,” his actions on the call are not evidence of discrimination by the company. But, she wrote, “Mr. Hilles was not a random employee who had little or nothing to do with hiring. It was Mr. Hilles’s job to talk to people interested in working for Transportation Management and to assist with the application process.”
Hilles’ actions when he got the pair of calls from McCracy, Judge Eagles said, show that the rejection by the recruiter “was not an outlier and that Transportation Management’s hiring practices discriminate against deaf drivers.”
“Since 2021 and continuing through the present, Mr. McCrary has held a medical waiver issued by (FMCSA) that waives federal regulations that would otherwise make him unqualified for a truck driving position due to being hard of hearing,” the EEOC said in its initial lawsuit. “At all relevant times, Mr. McCrary met the minimum job qualifications for a commercial truck driving position with Defendant, including possession of a valid CDL, and prior commercial truck driving experience.”
Talks to avert a lawsuit came up short
The EEOC filed the suit only after “conciliation efforts had failed,” according to the original complaint.
Court documents include a transcript of Hilles’ deposition during discovery in the case. During the questioning, the recruiter–discussing the English-speaking requirement that has suddenly exploded in the trucking industry–said “Department of Transportation requirements state that you have to read, write and speak English.”
Later in the deposition, an attorney for the EEOC asks Hilles if Wilson Logistics, the business name for Transportation Management, had ever accepted an applicant who spoke sign language. Hilles responded that he thought there had been hirings of people in that category.
But in the call itself with McCrary and his sign language interpreter, Hilles said in the deposition “I was expecting somebody to tell me on the other line that they had an exemption form.” But that information was not provided to him, Hilles said.
“If they would have said they had an exemption form, then we would have had a different conversation,” he said.
A transcript of the call shows it going off the rails quickly. There is confusion about the gender of the interpreter; the interpreter–after being referred to as “Ma’am”–states he is a male. The interpreter tells Hilles “I can tell that you are discriminating against me, so you need to be careful.”
But the key passage is that several times, Hilles states some version of “I cannot bring in somebody who does not speak English.”
McCrary testified in his deposition that he reads and writes in English.
The transcript of the call does not record Hilles saying Transportation Management could not hire a deaf person. But he comes close when Hilles says “I cannot bring in somebody who does sign language into our company. It’s one of our requirements.”
The judge does not rule on whether McCrary was qualified. As to Transportation Management’s view that he was not qualified, “perhaps a jury could conclude that, but there is plenty of evidence otherwise.”
The dispute, Judge Eagles said, “cannot be resolved at this stage.”
Although Wilson Logistics is based in Missouri, and Hilles testified in his deposition that he was based in that state as well, McCrary said in his deposition that he was based in Greensboro, North Carolina, hence the location of the case in the Tarheel State.
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