International Logistics Company Exel to Pay $80,000 to Settle EEOC Disability Lawsuit

ATLANTA — Exel Inc., doing business as DHL Supply Chain (USA), an international logistics company headquartered in Westerville, Ohio, will pay $80,000 and take remedial measures to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) disability discrimination lawsuit, the federal agency announced today.

According to the EEOC’s complaint, Exel denied a reasonable accommodation to a temporary employee at its Forest Park, Georgia logistics center who has sickle cell disorder, which can be triggered by extreme cold.

One of the assignments at the center required employees to spend significant time in a cooler. In January 2023, when a new supervisor assigned her to work only in the cooler, she requested the accommodation of working in the cooler for shorter periods of time or being assigned to two other available assignments which did not require entering the cooler.

Even though the employee worked in the non-cooler assignments for most of her employment with Exel, the company denied her request and said it does not accommodate medical restrictions. Shortly after denying the requested accommodation, Exel discharged her. Exel later hired all other temporary employees for full-time positions except for the former employee, costing her a permanent position, the EEOC charged.

“The EEOC is pleased that Exel agreed to resolve this matter before beginning a costly discovery process,” said Marcus G. Keegan, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Atlanta District. “Exel inexplicably refused to provide an available accommodation to a worker who had been successfully performing her job and then discharged her. We are hopeful that the remedial measures that Exel agreed to take to resolve this lawsuit will prevent this from happening again.”

This alleged conduct violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits disability discrimination. The EEOC filed suit (Civil Action No. 1:26-cv-01720-ELR-CCB) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process.

Darrell E. Graham, director of the EEOC’s Atlanta District, said, “The EEOC is pleased that not only did Exel agree to provide monetary compensation to resolve this matter, but it also agreed to ensure that it trains its employees on the law, in particular the frontline supervisors who receive accommodation requests.”

The approved consent decree settling the suit requires Exel to provide monetary relief to the employee; post a notice at the company’s Forest Park logistics center informing employees of the settlement and of employees’ rights against discrimination; provide periodic reports on Exel’s handling of future requests involving a failure to provide an accommodation at its Forest Park logistics center; revise its employee handbook at the logistics center to provide instructions to employees on how to request a reasonable accommodation; and train relevant managers about their responsibilities under the ADA with an emphasis on determining whether an employee is entitled to an accommodation.

For more information on disability discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/disability-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Atlanta District Office has jurisdiction over Georgia and the counties of Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester, Georgetown, Hampton, Jasper and Williamsburg in South Carolina.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.