NEW ORLEANS – As package delivery behemoth UPS faces a two-fold Title XII and ADA lawsuit from a current employee, Judge Jay Zainey of the Eastern District Court of Louisiana has honored and denied two separate motions from the defendant, moving the case forward upon altered terms.
Derrick J. Green, a mechanic at UPS since 2005, filed suit against his employer for its alleged failure to accommodate his request for a daily shift change due to an eye injury that left him partially impaired. Green also alleged that UPS’s failure to do so would serve bilaterally as racial discrimination, as the company offered accommodations to a white employee under similar circumstances.
At the request of UPS for each of the claims’ nature to be reexamined, Zainey in a statement posted on March 29 honored its motion regarding Green’s ADA claim but dismissed the other regarding Green’s racial discrimination accusation.
UPS argued that Green’s claims regarding each statute were insufficiently evidenced, and that their current basis should either be dismissed or be further defined. The judge found regarding Green’s ADA claims that he was arguing upon two legally distinct portions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one regarding disability discrimination and the other for the failure to accommodate, and thus Green’s motion under the ADA was denied.
However, Green’s racial discrimination claim will still stand as argued. This comes after Green’s argument that he was offered a lesser-paying position in lieu of a switch to working the day shift, a claim that could possibly stand as an adverse employment action.
Green’s case arrives during a time in which the delivery giant has faced multiple claims of racial discrimination across the nation.