A federal lawsuit filed in Maryland accuses Westlake-based Solera Holdings LLC of denying a blind employee the same job-related support and resources given to his colleagues, then firing him when his sales numbers suffered. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the vehicle lifecycle management company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by setting the worker up to fail and then using his performance against him.
According to the EEOC, Solera transferred a home-based employee in Bel Air, Maryland, from a consultant role into a sales job because of his degenerative eye disease, per the lawsuit. The suit further alleges that Solera limited the employee’s sales opportunities to just one product, failed to provide him sales leads, and excluded him from meetings and training sessions that other employees received, as reported by Fort Worth Report. The EEOC says that treatment hampered the employee’s sales performance — the very metric the company then relied on to justify terminating him in August 2025.
Agency Says It Tried To Settle Before Suing
The EEOC filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland after attempting a prelitigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process, the agency says. Karen McDonough, acting director of the EEOC’s Baltimore Field Office, said the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to give employees with disabilities an equal opportunity to succeed. “Employers cannot deny workers opportunities because of a disability,” McDonough said, according to the agency’s account of the case.
McDonough also said Solera allegedly denied the employee opportunities given to his colleagues and set him up to fail. Debra Lawrence, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Philadelphia District, said the ADA was enacted to ensure employers do not take advantage of workers because of disabilities. Lawrence said the commission will enforce the law and protect workers with disabilities when employers undermine job performance and then rely on that diminished performance to justify termination.
Company Did Not Respond To Request For Comment
Solera did not immediately respond to Fort Worth Report’s email request for comment on the allegations, the outlet’s report notes. The lawsuit has not been adjudicated, and the company’s side of the dispute has not yet been made public through any statement.
Solera Holdings was founded in 2005 and makes software for automotive and insurance companies, according to the Fort Worth Report’s reporting. The company says it has more than 5,000 employees and serves more than 280,000 customers and partners across more than 120 countries. Earlier this month, on October 14, Solera announced a partnership with Changan Automobile Europe Holding B.V. to provide technology services to Chinese automakers entering the European market, per the same report.
