An Irish truck driver says his company discriminated against him after firing him for pooping in a loading bay.
72-year-old trucker Rick Riordan was at a job when he was hit by a bout of “urgent diarrhea.” The driver, who was at a client’s facility at the time, ended up defecating in the loading bay and did not notify anyone about it.
After the incident, company management instructed Riordan’s manager not to assign Riordan any more loads. His hours were cut and he was eventually fired and replaced by another driver. Riordan now claims that he was fired to make way for a younger driver, and that his company has discriminated against him due to his age.
“When we found out about this incident we immediately stopped the drives because of how serious the nature of it was,” said All Star Logistics HR manager, Caroline Murphy. The company is based out of Limerick, Ireland, reported The Irish Sun.
During a hearing regarding the incident, Riordan maintained that his accident was brought on by a “peptic ulcer condition,” and that he did not notify anyone about the mess he left because he believed it would ‘wash away in a thunderstorm.’ The trucking company says that Riordan did not disclose that he was suffering from any medical condition or taking any medication in his paperwork, and never even mentioned it until his disciplinary meeting. Additionally, the company maintains that the consistency of the stool riordan left behind was ‘inconsistent with diarrhea.”
“As far as I was concerned, it was diarrhea,” Riordan said.
A decision regarding the potential discrimination against Riordan has not been reached.
