A soft-drink bottler in North Carolina agreed to pay $36,000 after federal regulators said it forced an employee with multiple sclerosis through an agility test that asked about her health, then fired her even after her doctor cleared her to return. The case closed last month, and it turns on a narrower question than whether an employer can test physical fitness at all. Under federal disability law, that kind of test can shade into an unlawful medical exam if it isn’t handled carefully, and the settlement is a reminder of where that line sits rather than a verdict on whether the company broke the law.
What the EEOC actually alleged against Cheerwine’s bottler
The employee worked for Piedmont Cheerwine Bottling Company, based in Colfax, North Carolina, and took medication to manage her multiple sclerosis. According to the EEOC’s account, the medication caused the cartilage in her hip to deteriorate, and she walked with a limp as a result. The company required her to take an agility test, and during that test she was asked impermissible questions about her health. She still met the job’s physical requirements. Cheerwine placed her on unpaid leave anyway, pending a complete medical clearance.
On March 30, 2023, she submitted a doctor’s note clearing her to return to work. Cheerwine rejected the note and terminated her employment. The EEOC took the case to federal court, detailed in Cheerwine to Pay $36,000 in EEOC Disability Discrimination Suit Over Agility Test Requirement, filed as EEOC v. Piedmont Cheerwine Bottling Company, Case No. 1:25-cv-00821, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, after first attempting to settle through the agency’s conciliation process.
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How a fitness test crossed into an unlawful medical exam
The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t ban fitness or agility testing outright, but federal disability discrimination law puts real limits on when an employer can ask health-related questions or require what amounts to a medical exam. Once someone is hired, an employer generally can’t require a medical exam or ask disability-related questions unless it can show the requirement is job-related and consistent with business necessity, and any medical information gathered has to stay confidential and separate from an employee’s regular personnel file. An agility test that veers into asking about a worker’s underlying health condition can cross exactly that line.
The ADA actually sets up three different rules depending on timing. Before a job offer, an employer can’t ask whether someone is disabled or require any medical exam at all. After an offer is made but before the person starts working, an exam is allowed, but only if every applicant in that job category has to take the same one, and the offer can be conditioned on the results. Once someone is already on the payroll, a medical exam or disability-related question is allowed only when the employer can show it’s job-related and necessary for the business, and whatever the exam turns up has to be stored in a separate, confidential file. Cheerwine’s employee was already on staff when the agility test was administered, which put the company under that third, stricter standard.
Why a consent decree isn’t a verdict, and what it does require
The case didn’t go to trial. It ended in a two-year consent decree, the tool the EEOC most often uses to close a lawsuit on agreed terms rather than through a judge’s or jury’s finding of fact. That distinction matters for how the story should be read: the EEOC alleged the conduct described above, and Cheerwine agreed to resolve the case on those terms, but the decree itself is a settlement mechanism, not a court ruling that the company violated the law.
Beyond the $36,000 in monetary relief, the decree requires Cheerwine to update and put in place written policies against disability discrimination, train its managers, supervisors and human resources staff, post an employee notice about disability discrimination, and report back to the EEOC. Those terms track the same obligations the EEOC lays out for employers generally in its guidance on ADA responsibilities: confidential handling of medical information, training, and a documented process for accommodation and medical-exam questions.
What the ADA’s medical exam rule means for other workers
Melinda Dugas, the EEOC’s regional attorney for the Charlotte District, put the underlying rule in plain terms in the agency’s release: employers can’t subject an employee with a disability to different terms and conditions of employment than employees without one, and any workplace testing has to comply with the law. The Charlotte District office, which covers North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, handled the case, and nothing in the release suggests the underlying conduct was unique to one industry or company size.
For a worker facing a fitness, agility or similar workplace test, the practical rule from the EEOC’s own guidance is straightforward: a post-offer medical exam has to apply to everyone in the same job category, and once someone is employed, health-related questions need a business-necessity justification an employer can actually point to. That’s the standard Cheerwine agreed to operate under going forward, whether or not the underlying allegations are ever tested in a courtroom.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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