Rideshare company faces federal suit over failure to hire deaf drivers

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday lodged a lawsuit against rideshare company Alto Experience after it said the company was turning away qualified deaf applicants.

The suit, filed in a Virginia-based federal court, accuses the Texas-based company of discriminating against at least 20 deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. The commission claims Alto denied individuals accommodations, placed them in less favorable positions or, in some cases, never hired them at all because of their lack of hearing. 

"The EEOC is committed to protecting the rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals," Mindy E. Weinstein, director of the commission's Washington field office, said in a press release. "Too often, employers make incorrect assumptions about their capabilities and do not understand how to provide effective communication accommodations."

Alto touts itself as the world's first rideshare company to employ drivers rather than treat them like contract workers like competitors Uber and Lyft. The promise of an hourly wage was enough for deaf driver Abenezer Lula to apply. 

According to the commission, Alto refused to hire a sign language interpreter to coordinate an interview with Lula, who spent time driving for Uber and Lyft. Alto told Lula that communicating via headset with dispatch was a requirement for the job and that no reasonable accommodations would help. 

In its position statement to the commission, Alto compared hiring Lula to hiring a blind person as an airline pilot. The commission initially tried to remedy the situation with Alto but said that the parties could not agree. 

Federal law under the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed in 1990, forbids employers from discriminating against otherwise qualified candidates because of their disability and provides that employers must offer reasonable accommodations. 

The commission states that Alto could use video chat features with interpreters for interviews. For drivers, the commission claims Alto can use text message communications with dispatch but refuses to do so. 

Uber, for example, uses flashes to alert its hundreds of thousands of deaf drivers to check their phones for instructions. 

"This lawsuit demonstrates the need for employers to implement available technology when qualified individuals with disabilities need reasonable accommodations," Debra M. Lawrence, a Philadelphia regional attorney with the commission, said in a statement.

In another lawsuit still being litigated in a Miami-based federal court, Willie Mae Jackson, a driver with over 20 years of passenger transportation experience, claims Alto fired her after she attended her employee training with hearing aids. Jackson said she tried to inform her supervisor that she could hook her hearing aid to the company headset via Bluetooth technology, but he refused. 

"Following her conversation with Mr. Oveisi, Ms. Jackson returned to her car and broke down in tears because it was the first time she had been treated differently because of her hearing impairment and need to wear a hearing aid," regulators said in the complaint, citing Jackson, who suffered a stroke less than a week after her termination. 

The commission's lawsuit detailed the experiences of other deaf applicants. When Ronald Smith logged into his virtual interview and found they hadn't provided an interpreter as requested, he logged off. Smith sent a message to Alto explaining he needed an interpreter to participate. Alto never replied to his message and instead marked Smith as canceling the interview. 

Jack Rozilio received a response from Alto claiming they were working to obtain an interpreter for his interview. Alto waited three months before ultimately denying Rozilio's request. 

Alto hired Heather Royal in 2022 to work as a personal driver in Alexandria, Virginia. A year later, Royal began wearing hearing aids. Rather than granting Royal an accommodation to sync her hearing aids with the company headset, Alto offered her a position as a service agent. 

Unlike drivers, service agents' base pay does not vary depending on the shift worked — meaning they cannot make more money by taking a different shift. The position also differs as it is not public-facing and requires manual labor, including cleaning the fleet cars.  

Alto offers its services only in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami. The company used to operate in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. It offers passengers professionally trained drivers in luxury fleet cars. Representatives from Alto did not respond to a request for comment.  

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 15% of Americans aged 18 and over report some trouble hearing. The institute also claims that one in eight people in the United States aged 12 or older have hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations. 

The commission seeks a permanent injunction barring Alto from continuing employment discrimination. It also seeks back pay, as well as compensatory and punitive damages for the aggrieved drivers.