Truck Driver Came Back From a Stroke Unable to Drive Commercially and Asked for a Transfer — O’Reilly Fired Him Instead, the EEOC Alleges

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A commercial truck driver at an O’Reilly Auto Parts distribution center went out on medical leave after a stroke and seizures, then came back to a harsh reality: he was told he couldn’t legally drive a commercial vehicle for years. He says he asked his employer for a different job—one that didn’t involve driving—and instead of helping him land in an open role, the company cut him loose.

That’s the core allegation in a new federal lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, laid out in the agency’s announcement about its case against O’Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC, doing business as O’Reilly Auto Parts.

He’d driven for the company for years, then his health changed everything

According to the EEOC, O’Reilly hired the employee as a commercial truck driver in 2015. For years, that job meant doing what the title says—operating commercial vehicles as part of the company’s distribution work.

Then, in the summer of 2022, the driver suffered a stroke and multiple seizures and ended up hospitalized in an intensive care unit, the EEOC says. From there, work wasn’t just interrupted—it stopped. The agency says he was placed on an approved leave of absence until February 2023.

Medical leave can be a temporary pause. But in this case, the driver’s ability to do his old job appears to have been knocked out long-term. Towards the end of his leave, the EEOC says, he was advised that he could not drive a commercial vehicle for five years.

The request wasn’t to stay a driver—it was to keep working

When someone’s job requires a specific certification or medical clearance, losing that clearance can turn a return-to-work conversation into a cliff. The EEOC’s lawsuit paints the driver as trying to find a safe, realistic alternative inside the same company rather than forcing a comeback that wasn’t possible.

The agency says that near the end of his leave, he requested a reasonable accommodation: reassignment to a non-driving position at an O’Reilly distribution center. It wasn’t presented as a special favor. It was framed as a way to remain employed while dealing with lasting medical restrictions.

And, crucially, the EEOC alleges he wasn’t asking for a job to be invented. The lawsuit claims he qualified for multiple open and available positions.

The EEOC says a company policy became a wall—and then came termination

This is where the case gets pointed. The EEOC says O’Reilly refused to offer him one of the open roles because of a policy that prohibited drivers from being reassigned to distribution centers.

Instead of moving him into one of the positions the EEOC says he was qualified for, the company terminated him, according to the agency’s allegations. In other words: after a stroke, seizures, an ICU stay, and an approved leave, the employee tried to come back in a different capacity—and the door shut.

The EEOC is treating that refusal as more than a hard HR decision. The agency says it crosses into disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability and requires reasonable accommodations absent undue hardship.

Why this case is framed as an ADA accommodation fight

The agency’s message here is direct: reassignment can be a required accommodation when it’s reasonable and there’s an open job the employee can do. In the press release, EEOC Indianapolis District Regional Attorney Kenneth Bird said, “Employers are required under federal law to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities, absent undue hardship, including reassignment to an open position.”

That matters because it frames the dispute around what should have happened next. If a worker can’t safely perform the essential functions of a driving job for years, then the next question becomes whether the employer has open, non-driving roles the person is qualified to do—and whether company policies can override the accommodation process.

In the EEOC’s telling, O’Reilly had open positions and the employee was qualified, but the policy against reassigning drivers to distribution centers blocked the transfer. The agency says that’s precisely the kind of rigidity the ADA is meant to prevent when it results in an otherwise avoidable firing.

How the lawsuit is moving forward—and what the EEOC wants

The EEOC says it filed the lawsuit—EEOC v. O’Reilly Auto Enterprises, L.L.C., dba O’Reilly Auto Parts, Case No. 2:26-cv-12098—in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The agency also notes it attempted to resolve the matter first through its administrative conciliation process, which is the pre-lawsuit negotiation stage.

Now it’s in court, and the EEOC is seeking multiple forms of relief. The agency says it wants back pay, compensatory damages, and punitive damages on behalf of the former employee. It’s also seeking injunctive relief—court-ordered changes intended to prevent future discrimination.

That mix is common in cases like this, where the allegations aren’t just “someone lost a job,” but “someone lost a job after requesting a legally protected accommodation, and the employer should be required to change how it handles similar requests in the future.”

The practical stakes, for workers and employers, are blunt

In real terms, this kind of case comes down to what happens when a worker’s life changes faster than a workplace can—or will—adapt. A commercial driver being told he can’t drive for five years isn’t a small restriction. It’s essentially a forced career pause, unless there’s another role available.

For a worker, a transfer request can be the difference between keeping health insurance and losing it, between a paycheck and an application stack, between stability and scrambling while still recovering. For an employer, the stakes run through staffing rules, internal policies, and whether they’ve built processes that can flex when a disability changes what an employee can do.

The EEOC’s lawsuit also spotlights a familiar pressure point: policies that make sense in a neat organizational chart can become a problem when they’re applied like a switch—especially if a qualified employee is asking for an open job and gets fired instead.

For now, the agency’s allegations are headed into federal court, with the former driver’s pay and damages on the line, and with O’Reilly facing the possibility of being ordered to change how it handles reassignment and accommodation requests going forward.