The employer told two different stories about why it ordered the test
An appeals court ruled that race discrimination and retaliation claims against an Alabama construction employer should go to trial.
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 1, 2026 overturned a ruling that had ended the case before trial. Two Black laborer-operators had sued Coal Bed Services Inc. and its parent company, Pate Holdings Inc., claiming the companies fired them because of their race and punished them for speaking up about it. The appeals court found enough evidence for a jury to weigh those claims.
The two employees worked for Coal Bed Services - a subsidiary of Pate Holdings - from September 2020 until the company ended their employment in February 2021. Both testified in depositions that their supervisors assigned them dirtier, harder tasks than their White coworkers and did not give them the same chances to build skills or move up.
They also testified that a supervisor referred to them as "y'all" and "them" rather than using their names, while always calling White employees by name. In January 2021, the pair had what they described as a racially motivated confrontation with that supervisor. According to one worker's deposition testimony as recited by the court, the supervisor belittled them beforehand - "talking crazy. Basically like, the boy stuff, like talking to us like we [were] beneath him." The other worker testified that when he challenged the supervisor's...
The Department of Justice announced on Thursday a large healthcare fraud takedown in California, resulting in alleged losses of $2 billion. Fifteen people have been charged in schemes that resulte...