Trucker alleging companies refused to hire him over his age loses lawsuit for second time

A truck driver who sued companies and lost over alleged age discrimination during the hiring process has lost an appeal.

Truck driver Timothy McLaughlin initially filed a lawsuit against Teamsters Local 249, CBS Studios Inc, and TriStar Pictures Inc. in Western Pennsylvania court in 2021.

According to the initial court filing, the suit alleged that CBS Studios and TriStar pictures began discriminating against him based on his age starting in 2011. The suit also alleges that his Union, Teamsters 249, blacklisted him after he complained about the hiring practices that related to the alleged age discrimination.

McLaughlin was born in 1952, making him about 58 years old and a longstanding member of the Teamsters when he claims the discrimination started. McLaughlin spent 2001-2011 working as a truck driver for a movie and television production studio. At that time, the Teamsters had a standard agreement with the production companies to refer potential truck drivers to the studio when hiring needs arose. While Unions typically use a seniority system to make these types of hiring referrals, in this instance the union sent show Producers the resume of every interested trucker, and the producers chose which driver to hire.

In 2010, McLaughlin began to complain to the Teamsters that the Producer hiring system was “unfair” because “production companies do not have any basis to know which drivers to select,” alleging that the process “insulate[s] nepotism and favoritism.

In 2011, the production companies stopped hiring McLaughlin and instead began hiring “[s]ignificantly younger and inexperienced individuals” who often had “personal ties” to either producers or leaders within the Teamsters.

Between 2011 and 2021, McLaughlin wrote letters and emails to Union officials and the National Labor Relations Board to complain about the Producer hiring system, and filed age discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. The complaints were followed by a lawsuit naming CBS and Tristar alleging age discrimination.

During his activism, McLaughlin continued to apply for movie driver positions, but claims that he was “blacklisted,” and was not hired for more than 50 productions due to discriminatory and/or retaliatory reasons.”

In 2022, a court ruled that McLaughlin did not provide sufficient evidence that he had been a victim of age discrimination. In 2024, the court also ruled that he did not provide enough evidence of being “blacklisted” by the union. In both cases, the court did not rule that McLaughlin’s claims were baseless, only that he could not prove them.

McLaughlin appealed the decisions in May 2026. On Monday, August 10th, Judge Thoedore McKee in Third Circuit Court denied the appeal, and upheld the District Court’s decision.