Lawsuit: Man forced to take drug test during heart attack
TRENTON » When Vincent Thomas doubled over on one knee at work last year, he thought his employer would get him help.
A manager spent about 40 minutes on the phone with corporate af ter Thomas told him he felt weak and sick on May 5, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
After talking it over with corporate, the manger summoned an Uber driver to pick up Thomas from the SanMar distribution center in Robbinsville.
Instead of taking him to the emergency room, Thomas was taken to a drug-testing center, where he underwent a drug screening, the lawsuit claims.
He felt so weak that staff at the testing center had to help him out of the Uber and escort him inside the facility.
After the test, Thomas asked the Uber driver to take him to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he learned he suffered a heart attack, the lawsuit says.
“He was advised by physicians that if he had returned to the San Mar facility after administration of the drug test he may have died,” Thaddeus Mikulski, Thomas’ lawyer, wrote in the complaint, which was filed last month in state court in Mercer County.
Thomas is suing the Issaquah, Washingtonbased apparel brand company for allegedly violating his right to privacy and New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law.
Mikulski said his client’s manager, who wasn’t name in the filing, didn’t have an “objectively reasonable basis” to suspect Thomas was hopped up on drugs.
And Thomas, who is Black, never agreed to undergo the drug test, the lawsuit says.
“It is simply outrageous that an employer would treat a 62 year old man with an exemplary work record with no history of drug or alcohol use in this manner,” Mikulski told The Trentonian by email. “The only explanation for their callous disparate treatment of my client is the color of his skin.”
Thomas, 62, of Trenton, was employed as a truckloader at the SanMar distribution center in Robbinsville, where he worked since 2015, the lawsuit says.
SanMar is described by Forbes as “one of the largest” business-to-business (B2B} apparel companies in the U.S., selling Tshirts, hats and other garb to corporations and sporting brands like the Seattle Seahawks.
The family owned business, founded in 1971, also boasts a partnership with Nike and has grown to employee 15,000 people globally, CEO Jeremy Lott told Forbes.
It has eight distribution centers throughout the country, including Jacksonville, Florida and Dallas, Texas.
Thomas’ attorney said his client was distressed, embarrassed and treated disparately by the apparel company since other employees who fell ill on the job weren’t sent for drug tests.
Representatives from SanMar didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment left at the Robbinsville distribution center and corporate headquarters.