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EEOC's Nevada complaint treats VRI Research's two call-center companies as one employer
EEOC alleges GSK Research and KGS Research, the two firms behind VRI Research, are one employer that refused accommodations to five disabled workers. If a court agrees, a refusal by one manager at one call center would count against both companies.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- According to the complaint, a general manager said he "did not do accommodations" and threatened to fire a worker with muscular dystrophy if she took stretch breaks.
- The EEOC filed on September 25 in federal court in Nevada, and the complaint covers conduct from 2018 through 2024.
- A remote interviewer who used a wheelchair was made to come to the office for paperwork and paychecks, then fired in June 2022.
- Another worker was granted bereavement leave and fired the next day for excessive absences, though the company had no absence policy.
- A repeat winner of the company's survey-volume award was told he sounded brain dead, then told his resignation was accepted when he asked to step out.
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Why it matters
- exposure If the single-employer theory holds, affiliated companies that share sites, staff and managers also share exposure. A group cannot count on its corporate split to keep one site's refusals away from the other entity.
- decision Groups that share managers across entities have to decide who may turn down an accommodation request. In this complaint, refusals by managers and an HR official who did not know the law are offered as evidence of a policy.
- cost The accommodations refused were cheap, in one case 6 to 12 minutes of breaks a shift. The companies' exposure comes from the refusals and the firings that followed them.
The trade-off for any group that runs affiliated companies from shared sites is set out in this filing. Whatever GSK Research and KGS Research gained by sharing call center locations, staff and managers, those are the facts the EEOC cites to allege that the two are a single employer [3]. Pleaded that way, conduct at both companies becomes one employer's record, six years long [1].
The board-deck version of the case is five disputes in six years [2][1]. The complaint's evidence for a standing refusal is about how requests were handled, and it does not depend on the count. According to the filing, nobody discussed the first worker's request for a lumbar-supporting chair and a footrest with her, though she brought a doctor's note [5]. The HR official was not aware of any federal or state law requiring the employer to accommodate medical conditions [6]. Supervisors turned down the second worker's stretch breaks because they would show "preferential treatment" [7]. The third worker's request to wear a boot was refused for "favoritism" more than two years later [9][2]. The report includes neither company's headcount nor a response from either one.
The requests themselves were small. The worker with muscular dystrophy asked for breaks of two to three minutes, three or four times a shift, or 6 to 12 minutes in all [7][3]. The filing says each of the five could do the desk-bound work of outbound calls, scripted questions and survey data entry with modest accommodations [4]. The company employed remote interviewers, yet it did not offer the worker with the injured knee the option of working from home [9]. It put her on unpaid leave instead, until she no longer needed the boot [10].
These are allegations in a complaint filed September 25, and it is too early to say whether a court will accept the single-employer theory [2]. For a group that shares managers across entities, the decision this quarter is who may decline an accommodation request, and whether a refusal passes through anyone who knows the law. Under the EEOC's theory, a general manager's refusal at one Las Vegas call center is the conduct of a single employer made up of both companies [3][8].
What to watch
- The defendants' answer in the District of Nevada, and whether GSK Research and KGS Research deny sharing locations, staff and management.
- Whether the EEOC files other suits that plead affiliated companies as one employer over blanket accommodation refusals.
- Any settlement terms, including whether a consent decree covers HR practices at both entities.