EEOC alleges employer refused to hire applicants using methadone treatment
EEOC challenges employer’s alleged no-hire rule for methadone users in new ADA case.
On December 2, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit in federal court in West Virginia accusing two affiliated companies of refusing to hire job applicants who use methadone and similar medications as part of treatment for opioid addiction and other substance-use disorders. The filing targets Wrightway Ready-Mix, LLC and Wright Concrete & Construction, Inc., which the agency alleges together constitute a single employer.
According to the filing, the case began with John Moore, who sought work as a general laborer at Wrightway Ready-Mix’s facility in or around Delbarton, in Mingo County, West Virginia. In late 2021 and in January and February 2022, Moore allegedly spoke multiple times by phone with hiring manager J.C. Johnson about employment. Johnson, the document states, told Moore to come in for a preemployment interview and to bring any medications he was taking so he could provide information about them when the company performed a preemployment drug test.
Moore went to the Delbarton site on or about February 9, 2022, to apply and interview for a general laborer position. During that meeting in Johnson’s office, Johnson asked whether Moore had brought his medications and what he was taking, the filing alleges. When Moore answered that he was taking methadone, Johnson allegedly replied that he could not hire Moore because of a company policy in effect since the 1990s.
The EEOC says Wrightway Ready-Mix has a policy of categorically refusing to employ any workers who use methadone, suboxone, or other medications used as part of medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction and other substance-use disorders. The filing asserts that this policy is a qualification standard or selection criterion that screens out, or tends to screen out, individuals with disabilities or a class of individuals with disabilities in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
After the office interview, Moore allegedly spoke in a hallway with Cheryl Tackett, identified as head of human resources for Wrightway Ready-Mix in February 2022. On learning that Moore used methadone, Tackett told him she could not hire him because of the company policy of refusing to hire workers taking methadone, the document states. When Moore asked to speak with someone higher up, Tackett allegedly responded that she was someone higher up.
The filing notes that Johnson, Tackett and other owners or employees of Wright Concrete or Wrightway Ready-Mix did not ask Moore about his prescribed use of methadone as a medical treatment, its side effects, the medical circumstances necessitating its use, or any possible risk related to his ability to safely perform the essential functions of a general laborer job. The agency also says no conditional or permanent offer of employment at Wright Concrete or Wrightway Ready-Mix was ever communicated to him.
Beyond Moore, the EEOC alleges that, from on or about February 8, 2022, to the present, the companies have denied hire to a class of job applicants on the basis of disability, including opioid addiction and other substance-use disorders, their records of such disabilities, and because the companies regarded them as having such disabilities. The filing further alleges that the companies have asked applicants, before making any conditional or permanent offer, about their use of prescription medications and then denied hire because of the information obtained.
The EEOC is asking the court for permanent injunctive relief, changes to hiring and medical inquiry practices, and relief for Moore and a class of presently unidentified aggrieved job applicants. The requested remedies include back pay with prejudgment interest, instatement with retroactive seniority and benefits or front pay in lieu thereof, compensation for past and future pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses, punitive damages, and costs.
The filing is a complaint and jury trial demand; the allegations have not been adjudicated.
