Five drivers flagged for time theft, but only two lost their jobs - both Black
A 20-year driver with a spotless record sues J.B. Hunt, alleging the company fired only its Black employees over time theft.
The driver had been behind the wheel for J.B. Hunt Transportation, Inc. since October 2005. He drove commercial routes and trained new drivers. By 2019 he had hit "Million Miler" status - a career milestone at the company - and had logged close to two million miles. He had never received a single reprimand or disciplinary write-up, according to the complaint filed October 4, 2026 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Then came the audit.
In April 2024, two operations managers told the driver that the company had audited approximately 20 trainers and flagged five for alleged "time theft," the complaint alleges. Of those five, only the driver and one other African-American trainer were immediately terminated, had all benefits suspended, and were given no chance to respond.
No opportunity to provide a statement. No opportunity to call witnesses or present evidence.
The complaint alleges the three non-African-American employees caught in the same audit were treated very differently. One, accused of approximately 35 hours of time theft, kept her job and benefits. Another, accused of approximately 44 hours, also kept her job and benefits. A third, a Caucasian employee who violated the company's payroll access policy, was neither terminated nor stripped of benefits. The same managers made all five disciplinary calls, allegedly applying the same company policies, the filing states.
J.B. Hunt also had an established practice requiring corporate review before terminating a Million Miler employee, according to the complaint. That practice was not followed.
The driver fought back. He appealed his termination to the company's vice president of intermodal, the complaint states, arguing he and the other African-American employee had been treated differently from their non-African-American counterparts. He called it race discrimination.
It worked - to a point. The company reversed the termination and reinstated both African-American employees. But according to the complaint, the reinstatement came under what the filing calls "the disguise of an 'error.'" And what followed was worse.
After returning to work, the driver had a recorded conversation with a company director in which he complained about his treatment and used the word "retaliation," the filing states. No investigation followed. Instead, loads were taken away. The complaint alleges the driver was assigned only "drop and hook" loads rather than the activity-based loads that paid more.
He was repeatedly passed over for an instructor position, the filing states, with the role going each time to less experienced Caucasian employees. He sent text messages and emails to his superiors. Nothing happened.
He escalated to a training coordinator, who passed his concerns to a safety director. The safety director told him the company was following policy, the complaint alleges - though the filing claims the policy seemed to shift whenever an African-American employee was next in line for the instructor role.
Then his training privileges were revoked entirely. The company alleged the driver had hauled a trailer without noticing a missing pin, according to the complaint. The driver denied it. He told the company his trainee could confirm the pins were in place before the trailer was moved to Kimberly Clark Warehouse. The company did not interview the trainee, the filing states. The only photographs it could produce came from another driver, taken after the driver had already left the premises.
His training privileges were not restored. That cost him more income on top of everything else.
The complaint alleges the driver lost more than $30,000 in wages as a result of the company's conduct.
The lawsuit alleges race discrimination and retaliation under two federal civil rights statutes - Title VII and Section 1981, which protects the right to make and enforce contracts regardless of race. It seeks compensatory damages, lost wages, loss of 401(k) funds, punitive damages, and attorney's fees. The driver has requested a jury trial.
J.B. Hunt Transportation, Inc. is one of the largest surface transportation and logistics companies in North America, publicly traded on NASDAQ and headquartered in Lowell, Arkansas.
For HR teams, the complaint raises a practical question that comes up again and again in disparate discipline cases: when an audit flags multiple employees for the same conduct, can the outcomes survive scrutiny if they split along racial lines - and the employees who got the harshest treatment never got a chance to respond?
The allegations in the complaint have not been tested, and no court has made any findings or rulings in the matter.
