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 behavior, the supervisor responded: "I've got more black friends than y'all."
Both workers reported the conduct to their direct supervisor, telling him the other supervisor was treating them differently because of race. According to the court, the direct supervisor did not investigate beyond speaking with the accused supervisor - who denied the claims - and chalked the conflict up to clashing personalities. He separated the workers from the other supervisor going forward but took no further action.
About four weeks later, the direct supervisor told the crew they all had to take a drug test. Anyone who refused or failed would be fired. The two Black workers and a White coworker all refused. All three left the jobsite.
What happened next is where the case pivots.
The court flagged a contradiction in the employer's account. Coal Bed Services told the EEOC in its position statement that the drug test was random. The direct supervisor later testified in his deposition that it was actually prompted by a report that the two Black workers had been seen smoking marijuana on the job. Both denied ever using drugs at work. The court noted there was no written documentation to back up the supervisor's account - a departure from how the company had handled past drug-related incidents with other employees.
Hours after walking off the jobsite, the White coworker contacted the direct supervisor asking to keep his job. According to the court, a company executive offered him his position back the next workday. His only condition was agreeing to future random drug tests. He did not have to pass a test before returning to work.
The two Black workers sought the same deal. Both reached out to their direct supervisor and other managers multiple times in February and March 2021, according to the court. They received non-committal responses and unreturned calls. One of them also contacted the company's owner, who promised to call back but never did.
The pay records reflected the same pattern. All three workers put in four hours on the day they refused the drug test. The White coworker was paid for a full shift. The two Black workers were paid for four hours only.
Several weeks later, the company filled the vacated positions with two White workers. One of them had been fired by the same company eight months earlier for failing a drug test. The company required him to pass a test before starting again but did not test him any further after that.
The Eleventh Circuit applied what it called the "convincing mosaic" standard - an approach that looks at the full picture of indirect evidence rather than requiring a near-identical comparison employee. The court identified six threads forming that mosaic: the lopsided rehire treatment, the pay gap, the replacement hires, the shifting drug-test rationale, the denied development opportunities, and the supervisor's conduct toward the two workers.
On the retaliation claims, the court found that the roughly four-week gap between the workers' discrimination complaint and their firing was close enough to establish a connection. The evidence was also enough, the court held, to show the company's stated reason for the terminations was not the real one.
The court reversed the lower court's ruling on all four claims - race discrimination and retaliation under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and a separate federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 - and sent the case back to the district court for trial. No determination of liability has been made. The factual findings recited in the opinion reflect the evidence viewed in the workers' favor, as the law requires at this stage of the proceedings. Those facts may not turn out to be the actual facts at trial.
