Return to Home PageThe Milwaukee District Office alleged in this ADEA action that defendant school district's early retirement incentive plan for teachers, in effect from June 1998 through at least June 2001, discriminated on the basis of age by reducing benefits for teachers who retired at older ages. The early retirement plan provided a cash benefit consisting of payment for up to 139 days of accrued sick leave, which was reduced on a sliding scale for each year after age 55 that an employee worked. Under the 5-year consent judgment resolving the case, 29 former teachers will receive a total of $361,963.17 in monetary relief ($276,075.67 in backpay and $85,887.50 in interest), with individual amounts ranging from $2,049 to $49,892. The judgment prohibits defendant from implementing or administering any retirement incentive plan that reduces benefits based on age or continued employment beyond the employee's date of first retirement eligibility.
The Detroit District Office filed this Title VII suit alleging that defendant, a manufacturer and seller of floor coating, sealant, specialized tooling, and industrial cleaning supplies, subjected female telephone sales representatives to a sexually hostile work environment, resulting in the constructive discharge of one woman, and discharged another woman for complaining about the work environment. Defendant's management staff consisted entirely of men, while the sales representatives were almost exclusively female. Defendant's male managers and defendant's training manual instructed female sales representatives to use sex over the phone to "warm up" male customers to buy defendant's products. Defendant encouraged women to make sexual jokes, tell sexually explicit stories, and promise to send customers explicit pictures of themselves or calendars of scantily clad or nude women. One woman quit when, after complaining about the sexual banter requirement, she was told by a manager to "just be my parrot and say everything I say." Another woman was discharged after telling her immediate manager that she would not recite sales lines she found offensive.
Three women will share $125,000 in monetary relief under the 1-year consent decree resolving this case. The decree provides that defendant has rescinded the training manual that the EEOC challenged, so advised its employees, and replaced the manual with a new one. The decree requires defendant to comply with Title VII, including the requirements regarding sexual harassment. Defendant is required to revise its sexual harassment policy to include a clearly- defined procedure for reporting sexual harassment and specific contact information for making a complaint.
In this Title VII suit, the Detroit District Office claimed that defendant, a small manufacturing company located in Roseville, Michigan, harassed and discharged a maintenance apprentice based on his race (black). Charging party worked for defendant from July 1997 until July 2003. In May 2002, he and another black employee complained to defendant's part-owner/manager ("owner") that another employee was using racially derogatory language. A few months later, the owner began to make racial statements and otherwise abuse charging party verbally and physically. The most troubling incident occurred in July 2003. The owner pulled a plastic bag (used to line 55 gallon drums) over charging party's head and almost down to his waist, pinning his arms against him. A week later, in the heat of an argument about the plastic bag incident, the owner fired charging party. The owner retracted the firing, but charging party, who received psychological treatment for his reaction to the owner's conduct, did not return to work.
Under the 2-year consent decree resolving this case, charging party will receive $100,000 in compensatory damages. The affirmative relief in the decree applies to all Wolverine Bronze- affiliated companies in which Smith has an ownership interest and to all employees working for those companies. Defendant is enjoined from creating, maintaining, or tolerating racial harassment. Defendant will establish a procedure for reporting and investigating complaints about incidents of racial harassment and intimidation. An individual may report racial harassment to the Human Resources Manager using a publicized 800 number, or to his/her supervisor or manager. The Human Resources Manager must make reasonable attempts to honor requests for confidentiality and must inform the complainant of his/her right to contact the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) or the EEOC with a complaint.
The Chicago District Office filed this ADEA case alleging that defendant, a nationwide managed healthcare company headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, demoted and discharged charging party, a national accounts manager in the headquarters office, in retaliation for filing an age discrimination charge. Defendant had given charging party satisfactory performance reviews before he filed his discrimination charge, but fired him 9 months after resolving the charge through the Commission's mediation program. Several months after the mediation, defendant gave charging party a "does not meet expectations" rating on his performance review and placed him on a 90-day PIP. A week after the PIP concluded, charging party was demoted to senior account manager, and 3 months later he was discharged. Under the 2-year consent decree resolving this case, charging party will receive $122,500 in monetary relief. Defendant is prohibited from engaging in retaliation under the ADEA, and will train managers and human resources staff on retaliation. Defendant will provide copies of its policy against retaliation which is in an employee handbook recently distributed to current employees to all new employees via intranet at the time they start working for defendant.
The Baltimore District Office filed this ADEA suit alleging that the defendants the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education (Paul Hall) of Piney Point, Maryland and the Seafarers' International Union (SIU) of Camp Springs, Maryland discouraged individuals age 40 and above from applying for, and denied them admission to, their seafarers' apprenticeship program. Paul Hall operates an apprenticeship program for deep sea merchant seafarers and inland waterways boatmen. Graduates of the program become eligible for membership in the SIU, which places many of them with cooperating shipper-employers. The SIU and employers who hire seafarers provide financial support to applicants accepted into the program. Beginning in July 2000, charging party (at age 40 and again at 41) requested information about the seafarers' apprenticeship program from the SIU website but never received a response. At the time, one of the eligibility criteria for admission was being "between the ages of 18 through 25." Application requests from a number of individuals in the protected age group were marked "too old." After defendants dropped the age limit from the application form, they continued to exclude applicants in the protected age group.
The lawsuit was resolved through a 5-year consent decree that followed defendants' unsuccessful interlocutory appeal to the Fourth Circuit challenging EEOC's 1996 regulation extending the age discrimination prohibitions of the ADEA to all apprenticeship programs. On January 7, 2005, the appeals court ruled that EEOC's regulation was a valid exercise of the agency's rulemaking authority. Under the decree, the defendants will pay aggrieved individuals identified by the EEOC (including charging party) $625,000 in compensation for wages which they purportedly would have earned from shipboard jobs had the apprenticeship training program been available to them. The decree enjoins defendants from imposing any upper age limit in recruiting applicants for or admitting applicants to the apprenticeship program. It also enjoins defendants from discriminating based on age (40 or older) against individuals who inquire about the program, apply for the program, or are enrolled in the program. In all written and electronic recruiting and admissions materials for the seafarers' apprenticeship program, defendants will state that they do not discriminate on the basis of age in recruiting for or admitting applicants into the program.
The Atlanta District Office filed this Title VII case alleging that defendant, an extended stay hotel business, discharged and otherwise retaliated against charging party (a district manager for six properties in Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia) because she complained about discrimination. Charging party, a white female, e-mailed defendant's Chief Operating Officer in September 2001 expressing her concerns about the exclusion of minorities from management positions. Until then, charging party had been considered a stellar performer. In the 2 weeks following her e- mail, defendant reprimanded charging party, criticized her performance, threatened to place her on a PIP, accused her of disloyalty to the company, and then terminated her.
Under the 24-month consent decree resolving this case, charging party will receive $317,000 in monetary relief. The decree's affirmative provisions, which apply to all of defendant's facilities in Georgia, include the following. Defendant is required to post notices concerning resolution of the decree. Defendant must create and institute a nonretaliation policy and advise all employees that it will not retaliate against them for complaining about discrimination. Defendant will instruct all management and supervisory personnel about the terms of the decree and the meaning of the notice and provide them with annual training on Title VII's equal employment obligations, including nonretaliation.
In this Title VII complaint, the San Francisco District Office alleged that defendant, a Monterey, California restaurant, subjected charging party and other young waitresses and hostesses (some just 17 or 18 years old) to sexual harassment and retaliated against charging party for complaining about the harassment. The women's male supervisors and coworkers engaged in severe and pervasive physical and verbal sexual harassment (calling women "sexy," "sweetie," or "babe," commenting on their bodies, whistling, leering, touching, grabbing, hugging, and kissing). Defendant initially took no action in response to charging party's several complaints about a particular coworker who subjected her to an escalating course of harassment over about 4 months. Defendant fired the perpetrator in early January 1998 after he came up behind charging party, grabbed her breasts, and kissed her on the cheek. After terminating the man, defendant disciplined the charging party three times in 2« weeks, and warned her that additional discipline would lead to termination. Due the continuing harassment and the retaliatory disciplinary actions, charging party quit, feeling she had no choice.
Under the 3-year consent decree resolving this case, defendant will pay seven claimants a total of $200,000 in monetary relief (in individual amounts to be determined by EEOC) in two equal installments due within 30 days and 90 days of the lodging of the decree. Defendant will ensure that its procedures and policies include an employee's right to complain about sexual harassment and retaliation, specific contact information (including an 800 number) for reporting discrimination, and a complaint and investigation procedure (with prompt and confidential investigations and, at the conclusion of the investigation, communication of the results and any remedial action).
In this suit, the New York District Office alleged that SPS Temporaries, Inc., and Professional Personnel Management Corp. (jointly "SPS"), the largest temporary employment agency in the Buffalo, New York area, and two SPS clients, Whiting Door Manufacturing and Jamestown Container Companies, engaged in various violations of Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA. The suit alleged that SPS: (1) failed to refer applicants for temporary employment based on their race, gender, pregnancy, national origin, age, disability, and responses to preemployment medical inquiries; (2) violated the Commission's recordkeeping regulations at 29 C.F.R. .1602.14 by intentionally and systematically destroying documentary evidence during the EEOC's investigation; (3) required applicants for temporary employment to complete a preemployment questionnaire that elicited information regarding potential disability; (4) failed to hire/refer a charging party for a machinist position because it regarded him as disabled due to his disclosure of carpal tunnel syndrome on a preemployment medical questionnaire; (5) discharged a second charging party from a sales representative position for questioning defendants' failure to hire the first charging party; and (6) discharged a third charging party from a service coordinator position because of her pregnancy. The suit also alleged that defendants Whiting Door (an Akron, New York manufacturer of roll-up and swing doors for trucks and trailers) and Jamestown Container (which has container-manufacturing facilities in Lockport and Cheektowaga, New York) engaged in hiring discrimination in violation of Title VII in filling temporary general laborer positions. The District Office claimed that Whiting Door asked SPS not to refer female applicants and that Jamestown Container asked SPS to not to refer black or female applicants.
The EEOC entered into separate consent decrees with the defendants, settling the case for a total of $580,000 in monetary relief. The 4-year decree with SPS requires defendants to pay $500,000 ($125,000 within 5 days of signing the decree and $7,812.50 monthly thereafter for the duration of the decree) into a Claims Fund, administered by CAC Services Group, LLC. The Whiting Door and Jamestown Container decrees (both 3 years) require those defendants to pay $60,000 and $20,000, respectively, into the Claims Fund described in the SPS decree within a few weeks after each executes its decree. The SPS decree provides that the three charging parties will receive payments of $20,000, $60,000, and $45,000 respectively in compensatory damages from the Claims Fund within 30 days of execution of the decree. The Claims Administrator will distribute the remaining funds to eligible claimants determined by EEOC as compensatory damages after a notice and claims procedure and a fairness hearing. The distribution will be in two installments, the first about 2 years after execution of the decree and the second at the expiration of the decree.
The SPS decree enjoins defendants from discriminating against any individual on the basis of race, sex, pregnancy, national origin, disability, or age, including complying with discriminatory requests from clients and requiring applicants for temporary employment to complete preemployment questionnaires containing questions that may reveal information about actual or potential disabilities. The Whiting decree enjoins it from refusing to hire temporary employees based on their sex and from making requests for temporary employees based on sex.
The SPS decree also requires defendants to distribute a notice regarding resolution of the case and a memorandum setting forth the coverage of federal employment discrimination laws to: (1) each applicant for full-time or temporary employment at SPS during the term of the decree, (2) each current full-time or temporary employee with his/her paycheck for the first eight payroll cycles following execution of the decree, and (3) each future full-time or temporary employee at the commencement of his/her employment. SPS is also required to distribute a notice to current clients and to new clients obtained during the term of the decree delineating SPS' and its clients' obligations under federal EEO laws and emphasizing SPS' commitment to abide by such laws. SPS must place job advertisements for temporary positions in the Buffalo News, Niagra Gazette, and Lockport Union-Sun and Journal with the goal of increasing applications from underrepresented populations (including blacks, Latinos, females, disabled individuals, and persons 40 years old and above) each time SPS recruits for temporary positions in the distribution area and no less than 45 times per year for the duration of the decree. All job advertisements shall state "Equal Opportunity Employer" or "EOE." Once every 60 days throughout the decree, SPS must send a job notice to specified organizations stating that it is an equal opportunity employer, encouraging applications for temporary positions from underrepresented groups, and requesting the organizations to publicize the notice for 2 months. SPS will provide the EEOC with semiannual reports on the race, sex, age, national origin, and disability status of applicants for temporary employment. The Whiting Door and Jamestown Container decrees require training, the adoption of nondiscrimination policies, and reporting on the hiring of temporary employees and on temporary employment agencies each defendant uses.
The Chicago District Office filed this Title VII suit alleging that defendant, a major provider of cellular communications, subjected a female switch technician at its Chicago facility to sexual harassment and disciplined and terminated her in retaliation for filing charges with the EEOC. Defendant hired charging party in October 2000; she was the only female of eight switch technicians in the Chicago area. Sometime in 2001, a male contract worker began regularly making offensive sexual remarks to charging party. He frequently asked her (by e-mail and in person) for sexual favors. made sexual gestures to her, and twice exposed his penis. Other male employees, including supervisors, made vulgar references to charging party and other female employees and engaged in sexual banter and other offensive conduct. Defendant promoted charging party to switch technician II in April 2002 on her supervisor's recommendation. In May charging party filed a sexual harassment charge and in late August 2002 the EEOC interviewed her supervisor about his interactions with the switch technicians and knowledge of the sexual harassment. A week later, defendant transferred charging party to the 3 p.m. to midnight shift prompting her to immediately file a second charge, alleging retaliation for filing the first charge. The following week, charging party's supervisor gave her a disciplinary warning for allegedly mishandling a cell phone problem and about a week after that he fired her without giving her a termination notice.
Under the 2-year consent decree resolving this case, charging party will receive $100,000 in monetary relief, consisting of $25,000 in backpay and $75,000 in compensatory damages. The decree enjoins defendant from creating, facilitating, or permitting the existence of a sexually hostile work environment and from engaging in any form of retaliation prohibited by Title VII.
The Chicago District Office filed this Title VII suit alleging that defendant, which manufactures and markets orthopedic equipment, subjected two charging parties and similarly-situated women at its Pekin, Illinois facility to sexual harassment and constructively discharged the two charging parties. At the time they resigned, both charging parties had worked for defendant for at least a year and held responsible positions (territory sales manager and director of new business development). The President/CEO, who managed defendant from a Florida office, visited the Pekin office for 3 or 4 days every few weeks and kept in frequent contact with the Pekin employees by telephone. The CEO made sexually suggestive comments, used derogatory terms to refer to women, and touched women inappropriately. Although defendant investigated at least two of the women's complaints, it failed to take effective corrective action. Finally, both charging parties quit because of the sexual harassment, one after she was hospitalized for an emotional breakdown caused by the negative tone of the investigation into her internal harassment complaint.
Under the 3-year consent decree resolving this case, defendant will pay $350,000 in monetary relief to eight women named in the decree: two will receive $25,000 each and the other six $50,000. The decree states that the two charging parties received additional monetary damages totaling $180,000 under a separate, private agreement with defendant. Defendant is permanently enjoined from sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and creating, facilitating, or tolerating a work environment that is sexually hostile to female employees. Defendant is also prohibited from engaging in retaliation under Title VII. At each of its locations, defendant must post a notice summarizing the allegations in the complaint and the principle requirements of the consent decree as well as information on how to contact the EEOC's Chicago District Office with a complaint.
Defendant will retain Dana Pearl, President of The Human Organization, Inc., based in Evanston, Illinois, as the Complaint Monitor. The Complaint Monitor will be responsible for independently investigating all sexual harassment complaints against defendant and for recommending disciplinary or corrective action. The decree requires defendant to take at a minimum all necessary and appropriate remedial measures that the Complaint Monitor recommends. Defendant is required to retain an outside Trainer, approved by EEOC, to train all employees in each of the 3 years covered by the decree on the prevention and eradication of sexual harassment from the workplace, the complaint procedure, and the Complaint Monitor's role. The Trainer will provide the CEO with a minimum of 4 hours of one-on-one training (or longer if the Trainer deems it necessary) annually, which will include the causes of sexual harassment and the effect of sexual harassment on its victims. Prior to the trainings, the Trainer will be allowed to familiarize himself/herself with the allegations raised in the case. The decree provides that every 6 months the Complaint Monitor will provide the parties with a detailed written report on each sexual harassment complaint received (including the name of the complainant, allegations, summary of the investigation, and resolution). The Complaint Monitor must file a redacted copy of the report with the court.
This page was last modified on February 6, 2006.