Charter Communications Told a Disabled Worker His Safe Commute Wasn’t Their Problem

Source: EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC — U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit — Decided July 28, 2023

Charter Communications told a legally impaired worker, in writing, that it had been “kind enough” to temporarily change his shift, then denied his request for 30 more days of the same accommodation the very same day he asked for it.

James Kimmons worked the phones at Charter’s Milwaukee call center. He had cataracts at the center of his vision in both eyes. His optometrist told him, even with glasses, he should not drive at night. His shift ended at 9 PM. His drive home to Racine was one hour each way. The math here is not complicated. He was working a schedule that put him on a dark highway with blurred vision and glaring traffic lights every single workday.

Kimmons did not ask for a company car. He did not ask for a personal driver. He did not ask for a raise or a transfer. He asked Charter to move his shift start time from noon to 10 AM and end two hours earlier, so he could be off the highway before full dark. That is the accommodation at the center of this entire legal fight.

Charter said no. Then, when challenged, the company cited its own voluntary 30-day grant as evidence of its generosity, and told Kimmons to look into carpooling or taking the bus. The buses stopped running at 9 PM. Charter knew this when they said it.

The Non-Financial Ledger

James Kimmons drove an hour each way between Racine and Milwaukee every single day. That commute, for a person whose optometrist told them to avoid nighttime driving entirely, was not an inconvenience. It was a daily gamble with his physical safety. When you have cataracts at the center of your vision, traffic lights do not appear as signals. They appear as expanding halos of glare. Road obstacles blur into the background. Other cars become shapes without edges. Kimmons was not asking to be exempt from his commute. He was asking for enough daylight to get home without crashing his car.

When Charter denied his request for a second 30-day extension, Kimmons did not quit. He did not give up. He started cobbling together a commute from scratch, using public buses wherever they ran and relying on friends to fill the gaps. The court record describes this arrangement as “frequently unreliable.” That is a legal document’s way of saying: he showed up to work every day not knowing whether he could get home. That is not a minor inconvenience. That is a person burning social capital, exhausting friendships, and living with daily anxiety so that a billion-dollar telecommunications company would not have to adjust a spreadsheet.

Kimmons asked Charter for the names of coworkers who lived near him so he could carpool. Charter told him the information was confidential. The company that built its business on connecting people refused to make a basic internal referral to a disabled employee who was legally impaired at night and needed a ride home. That refusal had a name attached to it. It was policy. It was intentional.

The court record notes that Kimmons explored a taxi or ride-share service and discovered it would cost more than Charter was paying him. Read that again: the only remaining option to get home from his job safely would have wiped out his entire wage. Charter’s suggestion, offered formally in their written denial, was that he should “consider all of your own options to manage your transportation.” They said this knowing he had already tried the bus, already tried carpooling, and already been denied access to his own coworkers’ contact information. The company’s “advice” was not advice. It was a closed door dressed up in corporate language.

Kimmons ultimately did not move to Milwaukee, because he discovered he could not afford it. The temporary accommodation, the 30-day shift change, had been designed specifically to buy him time to find housing closer to the job. Charter yanked that window shut before he could climb through it. He lost the time, kept his disability, and ended up back on a highway after dark. His employment ended in January 2017. The case dragged through federal courts for years after that. The system that was supposed to protect him took nearly seven years from filing to the appellate reversal. Charter billed millions in legal fees during that time to argue that a two-hour schedule shift was too much to ask.

Legal Receipts: What the Documents Actually Say

“Assistance with your commute is not required under the ADA. The Company has been kind enough to temporarily change your shift while you attempted to find alternative assistance for your commute, even though it had no legal obligation to do so.”

— Charter Communications, written response to Kimmons’ internal appeal of the schedule denial

“Kimmons alleges there was never a time he worked in the Milwaukee call center when he drove himself to the office. Instead, through a combination of public transportation and friends, Kimmons managed to get to work, a travel arrangement that was frequently unreliable.”

— U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC (July 28, 2023)

“It was clear that a taxi or ride-share service would cost more money than Charter was paying him.”

— U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC (July 28, 2023)

“Kimmons was not asking for an unaccountable, work-when-able schedule or a permanent accommodation. He did not demand the company itself transport him to work. He asked only for a temporary work schedule that would start and end two hours earlier while he found time to move closer. A jury could have found his requested accommodation to be reasonable.”

— U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC (July 28, 2023)

“Kimmons’ testimony about his inability to drive safely at night is evidence of how his vision impairment affects major life activities, such as walking, seeing, and working… everything is just … opaque…. You just get glare. You don’t actually see an object.”

— James Kimmons, as cited in the appellate ruling. His optometrist added: having cataracts is like “throwing debris against a window in your house. If you have enough of that block the window, you can’t see anymore.”

“Charter summarily denied this request the same day.”

— U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, describing Charter’s response to Kimmons’ extension request

Societal Impact Mapping

Economic Inequality: When Your Paycheck Can’t Buy Safety

The clearest economic injustice in this case is contained in a single sentence from the court record: a ride-share or taxi would have cost Kimmons more than Charter was paying him. Charter’s wage for call center work in 2016 did not leave enough margin for a disabled employee to solve the transportation problem the company refused to solve. This is the structural trap that poor and working-class disabled people fall into every day: your employer sets your wage, your employer sets your hours, and your employer decides whether your disability makes those hours survivable. Kimmons held all the risk and Charter held all the control.

When Charter denied Kimmons’ request for a 30-day extension and told him to consider moving closer to the workplace, they were giving advice that required money Kimmons did not have. The court record confirms he ultimately did not move because he could not afford it. Charter recommended a financial solution to a man they were paying wages that made that solution impossible. This is not a coincidence. Low-wage workers are structurally the least able to absorb the costs of disability accommodation that their employers refuse to provide, and they are the least equipped to fight back legally when denied.

This case also exposes a power imbalance in how accommodations are litigated. Charter could afford to fight this case through federal district court, through a full appeal to the Seventh Circuit, and presumably through whatever proceedings follow the remand. The EEOC had to take the case on behalf of Kimmons because individual disabled workers fighting multi-billion-dollar corporations over schedule changes cannot typically afford the legal fees that process requires. The company’s ability to outlast workers in court is itself a form of economic coercion.

Public Health: The Safety Risk Charter Left on the Road

The court record is explicit: Kimmons’ optometrist recommended he avoid driving at night even while wearing glasses. His cataracts caused traffic lights to produce glare instead of signal, and road objects to blur into the background. Charter sent him home on a one-hour highway drive after these conditions set in every single workday. The public health concern here extends beyond Kimmons alone: a driver with blurred vision and intense glare sensitivity on a nighttime highway is a hazard not only to himself but to every other driver on that road.

Charter’s formal position was that this was entirely Kimmons’ problem to manage. Their written denial told him to look into carpooling and public transportation without acknowledging that they had already refused to provide carpool contact information and that the last bus ran at exactly the time his shift ended. The company’s indifference to the road safety risk it created by insisting on a 9 PM end time for a night-blind employee is remarkable in its completeness.

The broader public health implication is this: when employers are permitted to deny schedule accommodations to workers with vision impairments, they are effectively pushing disabled drivers onto roads at hours their own doctors have told them are unsafe. The ADA was designed in part to address this exact dynamic. Congress wrote directly in the law’s findings that disabled people “continually encounter the discriminatory effects of transportation barriers.” Charter’s policy response to Kimmons was a textbook example of that barrier in action.

What Now?

The Seventh Circuit reversed the lower court’s dismissal and sent this case back for trial. That means the fight is not over. Here is who is watching and what you can do.

• EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission): The agency that brought this case. If your employer has denied a disability accommodation, file a charge at eeoc.gov. The agency litigated this case for years on Kimmons’ behalf.
• Charter Communications Executive Leadership: The executives who set the policy that denied Kimmons’ request hold titles including Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, and General Counsel. These roles set accommodation policy for tens of thousands of employees. Their names are publicly listed in Charter’s SEC filings.
• Department of Justice / Civil Rights Division: DOJ enforces the ADA alongside the EEOC. If you see a pattern of accommodation denials at your employer, the DOJ Civil Rights Division accepts complaints.
• Your State’s Labor and Workforce Agency: Many states have disability rights protections that exceed federal ADA minimums. Your state labor agency may offer faster remedies than federal court.
• Disability Rights Advocates: National and local disability rights legal organizations provide free representation. Organizations like Disability Rights Advocates and the National Disability Rights Network offer resources and referrals.

If you work at Charter or any call center with a similar policy, document every accommodation request and every denial in writing. Keep copies outside company email systems. Connect with coworkers facing similar situations. Collective documentation is harder to dismiss than individual complaints, and organizing together is how low-wage workers have historically won what the courts alone have refused to give them. Talk to your union if you have one. If you don’t, look into forming one.