TRIAD — A former NASCAR pit crew member lost his job primarily because he was too small for the job that it became, not because of a back injury, and therefore he isn’t entitled to disability compensation, a state appellate court ruled.
Matthew Donley, whose 10½ years in NASCAR included almost six with Richard Childress Racing in Davidson County, was working as a tire carrier for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2017 when NASCAR adopted a rule cutting in half the number of tire carriers each pit crew could have, according to the court record. That meant that for the 2018 racing season each carrier had to be able to carry 130 pounds at a time.
Before the start of the 2018 season, Donley was downgraded to a backup tire carrier.
Donley later hurt his back during a team workout but received medication and continued to practice as a backup tire carrier until he and other backups were fired in April 2018.
Later that year, a spine specialist recommended treatment and limited Donley to lifting no more than 10 pounds, and Donley filed for disability benefits.
Ganassi ceased paying Donley’s benefits after Donley started working in real estate in the Lake Norman area in 2019. Donley applied to reinstate the payments, but he was denied by the N.C. Industrial Commission, and he filed an appeal.
The N.C. Court of Appeals said in a ruling issued Tuesday that Donley’s reduced earnings were not due to his injury because he would have been fired anyway since he was not rated among Ganassi’s top four tire carriers.
“The (Industrial) Commission found in this case that Plaintiff’s reduced wages were not caused by his injury, but by his pre-injury relatively inferior ability as a tire carrier, the reduction in available positions, and the increased requirements of those positions,” the court wrote.