OSHA is seeking back wages and damages totaling more than $100,000 from a Missouri-based trucking firm after alleging the company unlawfully retaliated against a former employee when he sought medical attention for a work-related injury.

OSHA ordered New Prime Inc. to pay the driver $41,373 in back wages and $60,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. After an investigation, the agency determined the carrier had violated the anti-retaliation provisions of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act by blacklisting the driver from work in the commercial trucking industry.

“Blacklisting an employee and sabotaging a worker’s career is unacceptable,” said Robert Kulick, OSHA’s regional administrator in New York, whose offices conducted the investigation. “It can have a dangerous ripple effect if employees are compelled to drive when unwell or under medication because they are afraid they will lose their livelihood.”

Mr. Kulick also said, “OSHA will not tolerate employers retaliating against its employees for reporting violations, including forcing employees to operate commercial driver and the public.”

According to the agency, the driver notified his supervisors in October 2008 that he had sustained an on- the-job back injury and was seeking medical attention. The following month he provided documentation that the condition was serious enough to prevent him from returning to work because he had been prescribed medications that made operating a commercial motor vehicle unsafe.

In July 2009, the driver’s physician released him for full duty. He decided not to return to New Prime Inc. and began seeking employment elsewhere in the industry.

After being rejected for a job, the driver learned his former employer had submitted damaging and misleading information about his employment to a provider of pre-employment and drug testing screening services, the agency said. The information appeared on the driver’s Drive-A-Check Report, an employment history submitted by former employers in the trucking industry. The driver then filed a complaint with OSHA. The company has said it will appeal.