A federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission sexual harassment lawsuit against the company that owns the Sonic Drive In in Mineola as well as several other locations has been resolved in the favor of the Sonic’s owners.

A jury verdict reached last week in federal court found that a Sonic employee did not sexually harass any of the seven plaintiffs involved in the suit.

“The McQuilliams family are good, honest people who treat their employees well and have for decades,” said lead defense counsel Eric Kolder of Tyler. “The EEOC had been unfairly targeting their Sonic Drive Ins in East Texas since 2020 and trying to put them out of business. My co-counsel, Chelsea Milam, and I were thankfully able to show the jury both of these truths during trial. The court system certainly worked as designed in this case.”

The trial was held in the United States District Court Eastern District of Texas in Tyler.

Jurors answered the question “No” for all seven plaintiffs: Has plaintiff EEOC proved that Leston Juarez harassed the claimant because of the claimant’s sex?

They also answered “No” to the question, “Has plaintif EEOC proved that the defendant who employed the claimant acted with malice or reckless indifference to the rights of the claimant?”

Two of the plaintiffs also claimed they were constructively discharged from their employment at Sonics in Mineola and Whitehouse, to which the jurors also found in the negative.