Toyota faces ADA suit over manager’s alleged scoring boast

In July 2014, the filing says, she suffered a permanent right shoulder injury while reaching into equipment to change a cutting tool. After surgery and a 2020 Functional Capacity Evaluation, she was placed on permanent lifting restrictions. Toyota’s own safety policy already required a two-person lift for anything over 20 pounds – the same threshold as her restrictions. 

For four years, Watkins says, she performed her assigned roles successfully under those restrictions. She trained Group Leaders, Team Leaders, and Team Members in Toyota’s 3 Pillar system. Her supervisors told her she was excelling on a new Differential Line in early 2025, the complaint alleges. 

The promotion piece is where the case sharpens for HR. In 2021, Watkins alleges, Manager John Sharp told her he would not recommend her for Group Leader because of her shoulder injury. In 2022, she says she passed every assessment, then received an email rejection within 30 minutes of leaving her interview – for a “conflict resolution” reason that, per the complaint, never came up in the interview itself. A Toyota HR representative, Brian Williams, allegedly told her he believed she had done well and could not account for the reason given. 

The most damaging allegation is directed at Senior Manager Mike Hogan. Watkins says Hogan told another employee, in front of two witnesses, that he could “score her so low that she will never get out of the pool.” According to the filing, Hogan was the same decision-maker scoring her promotion applications. 

Watkins escalated through Toyota’s Speak Up Line and Ethics Hotline in 2022, 2023, and October 2024. She filed an EEOC charge on May 28, 2025. The October 2024 complaint, she alleges, triggered an internal investigation in which Hogan gave investigators a false reason for moving her off the 3 Pillar Team – that the project had ended. The complaint says it had not, and that the team was still staffed as of August 2025.