Retailer Wet Seal has decided to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit that alleged that the company fired black employees from its stores in order to present itself as a white, blond, blue-eyed company.

The lawsuit had been fired by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and alleged that the retailer frequently denied higher pay and promotion opportunities to black employees and managers at its stores. In some cases, these black employees were terminated from their positions, and replaced with white employees.

in December, the company suffered a major legal setback when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the company had discriminated against a black manager at a Pennsylvania store, by removing her from her job. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission conducted an investigation into the death of the company which determined that the company had purposely sought out a white blonde, blue-eyed look for the company profile, and hired workers who met that profile.

Now, the company has decided to pay $7.5 million to settle the lawsuit. Out of the damages, $5.58 million will go into a fund that has been set up to finance the damages suffered by other employees of the company due to such bias.

Wet Seal has also decided to make several changes to its policies. The retailer has promised to track job applications in order to ensure diverse hiring practices as well as modification of its kind human resource development in order to facilitate better investigation of discrimination complaints. The company will also set up and maintain a council of advisors who will be entrusted with the task of advising the company on equal employment compliance

It’s 2013, and several decades have passed since the Civil Rights Act. In this day and age, California discrimination lawyers do not expect to come across such widespread and blatant cases of discrimination. However, unfortunately, such episodes of discrimination are reported frequently in the media. An African-American nurse is suing a Michigan hospital, because she claims that the hospital agreed to one parent’s bizarre request that no black nurse be allowed to touch his baby.

The incident occurred at the Hurley Medical Center in Michigan, where Tonya Battle works as a nurse. According to her lawsuit, she came across a note that had been posted on an assignment clip board, clearly stating that no African-American nurse was allowed to care for the baby in question. The note was later removed by hospital officials. However, for close to a month, no black nurses were allowed to handle the baby and no African American nurses were assigned to the baby at all.

According to the lawsuit, a pediatric intensive care nurse was at the infant’s bedside, when a man came into the unit. She asked him for identification, and he informed that he wanted to talk to her superior. He later told her superior that he did not want any African-American nurses caring for his baby.

Obviously, this case has garnered nationwide attention. Many African-American advocacy groups have spoken out against the hospitals’ actions in tolerating such bias. The Reverend Al Sharpton and his National Action Network have jumped in, speaking out against such blatant discrimination in the year 2013.

Centerplate, Inc., one of the largest hospitality companies in the world, has settled allegations with the Justice Department that the firm discriminated in the employment of non-U.S. citizens.

For at least three years, these employees were required to produce documents issued by the Department of Homeland Security – a requirement that was not asked of U.S. citizens. 

Any victims who lost wages as a result of these practices will be fully compensated.  The company will additionally pay $250,000 in civil penalties which is the third-highest amount paid since 1986 when the Nationality Act’s discrimination provision became law. 

A $2 Million settlement announced on Tuesday by the EEOC resolves a four-year-old class-action lawsuit against the department store chain, Dillard’s Inc.  

The settlement resolves allegations that the company illegally required current and former employees to provide a doctor’s note explaining not only that they were being treated, but also the nature of their condition when seeking sick-leave.  The EEOC says that those who were advised by their doctors not to reveal their condition or who simply did not feel comfortable doing so were fired.  

While Dillard’s argued that their policy was necessary to confirm the legitimacy of the medical absences, the EEOC says that employers may only ask for treatment details if those particulars are job-related and necessary for the conduct of business.

The settlement includes a three-year consent decree which requires the company to hire a consultant to review company policies, revise them, and train supervisors and staff on federal disability law. 

 For more information about this and other discrimination cases, visit our website today.

 

On Monday, a racial harassment award of $1 Million was upheld by the 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  The court said that this award, one of the largest ever for racial harassment in high school, was fair because the school district should have done more to stop the threatening and violent conduct directed at a student, Anthony Zeno.

Zeno, now 23, endured numerous incidents of harassment while attending Stissing Mountain High School.  He endured racial slurs, taunts, physical assault, and other incidents such as having his locker filled with garbage. 

The court concluded that while the school suspended some of the harassing students, these were “deliberately indifferent responses” that led to Zeno’s continued harassment. 

Wet Seal, a nationwide apparel retailer, has been found by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to have illegally discriminated against a former store manager, Nicole Cogdell.

The discrimination occurred after one of the store’s executives complained about too many black employees at Ms. Cogdell’s store in Pennsylvania and several others in the area.  The former senior vice president for store operations inspected these stores and sent out an email saying, “African Americans dominate—huge issue.”  Managers have also openly stated that they wanted employees who were blue eyed, thin, and white. 

This email as well as the lay offs of several African-Americans at these Pennsylvania stores created a hostile work environment for Ms. Cogdell which forced her to quit.  The EEOC said that this resignation was the same as a discharge in this case.

The lawyers for Ms. Cogdell are saying that there are more than twenty current and former employees who filed bias charges with the EEOC and are seeking class-action status for her lawsuit against Wet Seal. For more information about this case and employment discrimination in general, visit our website today.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday that questioned a decision made by the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding who can be considered a supervisor in harassment and retaliation claims. 

The 7^th Circuit upheld a decision made by a federal judge that the co-worker who harassed and retaliated against Maetta Vance was not a supervisor because the co-worker did not have the ability to fire Vance.  Other federal appeals courts, as well as the EEOC, have broader criteria for who is considered a supervisor defining that person as someone who has the authority to make “tangible employment decision[s] affecting employees.

Vance’s lawyer argued that the definition of supervisor as ruled by the 7^th circuit should be broader because it “does not fit well with the reality of the workplace.”  The federal government, as well as Ball State University, Vance’s employer, agreed. 

The decision is expected to be made by the Supreme Court sometime next year.

On Wednesday, a lawyer for Goldman Sachs argued in front of a US appeals court to send the gender discrimination dispute of a former employee to arbitration instead of allowing the case to proceed as a class action.

The former employee, Lisa Parisi, had an arbitration clause in her employment contract.  Goldman Sachs’ lawyer argues that this should then be the forum for the dispute.  However, the opposing argument is that since the class action alleges a pattern or practice of discrimination the arbitration clause shouldn’t apply.

While recent US supreme court decisions have favored arbitration, like in the April 2011 AT&T decision, the motion from Goldman’s lawyers to enforce the arbitration agreement has been denied three times.  The hearing on Wednesday asked both sides to answer the question of the extent of legal rights lost if the case moves to arbitration or if it doesn’t.

The lawsuit, proposed as a class action, was filed in 2010 by three former female Goldman Sachs employees.  It accuses the company of gender bias and says that the company favors men over women for pay and promotions. 

Starline, the oldest and largest of Hollywood tours, has settled an Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit this week due to its lack of wheelchair accessible buses and employees trained to handle such situations. Instead of gazing at movie stars and experiencing the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Amy Champlin and her group waited six hours for a bus that failed to start, following the initial eight-months it took to find a tour that assured that it would accommodated her group.  

The problem, however, goes far beyond this single tour company. The attorney who filed this case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robyn-Marie Lyon Monteleone, has received plenty of complaints regarding at least three other tour companies and hopes this suit will send a message.

Champlin was originally told that the company could only take passengers that could walk onto the buses and collapse their wheelchairs, but eventually Starline agreed and she booked a seven and a half hour deluxe tour of Los Angeles and the homes of movie stars for herself and others attending an ataxia conference.

The bus that arrived at 7:30 in the morning, however, was not wheelchair-accessible. Champlin and her party waited for several hours for an additional bus, and once everyone was aboard, the new bus wouldn’t start. The excuse for the malfunction was simply that the bus is rarely used. The group gave up on their tour after another two hours of waiting. Starline also acknowledged that only about a quarter of their tour buses are actually wheelchair-accessible.

"This was the big L.A. trip of their lifetime; many of them thought they may never be well enough to come out again," Monteleone said of Champlin and her group, who suffer from the degenerative disease, ataxia. "To them, it was a really big deal."  The company has agreed to compensate the group with $15,000 and pay a fine of $5,000.

Junior Corp, a restaurant chain company located in Virginia, has been involved in gender discriminatory practices against a former employee. Abigail Shomo was hired as a waitress at Mi Puerto Restaurant in May 2010 and, not long after, became pregnant. Shomo alleges that her boss and boyfriend at the time, Leopoldo Florez Aguirre Jr., had given her a warning to either have an abortion or be fired. Shomo was told that her “belly” will affect business and customers would rather have a slim waitress. Keith Finch, the defendant’s attorney denied any claims of discrimination against Aguirre Jr. The case is undergoing mediation.