Beginning on Dec. 1, 2004, claimants consisting of employees who had exceeded the maximum 180-day leave policy were terminated and/or were not provided reasonable accommodations by their employer, Mueller Industries Inc., a global metal goods manufacturer based in Memphis. The claimants filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which engaged in pre-litigation conciliation and mediation processes with Mueller Industries. The EEOC then sued Mueller Industries, alleging that the company’s actions violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC claimed that Mueller Industries had provisions that assigned points to certain employee absences and that employees were in some cases terminated based upon the accumulation of a certain defined number of points. It alleged that Mueller Industries wrongfully terminated employees and/or failed to provide reasonable accommodations to those exceeding its maximum 180-day leave policy. The EEOC claimed that, through its investigation, it discovered individuals who had been adversely impacted by the policy from 2004 all the way to the present. Mueller Industries claimed that the policy at issue was always applied in a fair, non-mechanical manner and that it modified the policy in 2014., The EEOC, on behalf of the claimants, sought injunctive relief and recovery of compensatory damages in the form of back pay for the employees.