Each month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) files lawsuits and settles cases covering the federal laws they are responsible for enforcing. These federal laws include:
Below is a list of lawsuits and settlements by the EEOC in from August 1 to August 15, 2024.
EEOC Lawsuits
California: EEOC Sues HCL America for Age and National Origin Discrimination
Age discrimination; National origin discrimination
Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
According to the lawsuit, HCL America interviewed an applicant for a sales director position in July 2021. Although the applicant met the job qualifications, the hiring manager emailed the hiring team after the interview, described the applicant as a “good guy, but he is too old,” and then asked recruiters to send him applications from non-Indian candidates. Emails between recruiters and managers ranking as high as HCL vice presidents revealed that HCL set aside applications from qualified Indian applicants and discussed relaxing the job qualifications while searching for non-Indian candidates. HCL hired a younger, non-Indian candidate for the sales director position.
Florida: EEOC Sues VibraLife of Katy for Disability Discrimination
Disability discrimination; Retaliation
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
According to the lawsuit, VibraLife hired an employee with a sleep disorder for a night-shift position. The job posting required the selected candidate to work 36 hours per week via three 12-hour shifts. Upon beginning her employment, the employee was notified that she would be required to work a fourth 12-hour shift every other week. The employee promptly requested an accommodation that her schedule be limited to the express terms of the job posting. Shortly after receiving the employee’s request for a reasonable accommodation, the employee was demoted and subsequently terminated.
Georgia: EEOC Sues Buffalo Wild Wings for Religious Discrimination
Disability discrimination
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, a server candidate for the Douglasville, Georgia location wore long skirts in public because of her sincerely held religious beliefs. Before she applied, the Douglasville general manager told the candidate at a social gathering that the restaurant was hiring, but also mocked her religious beliefs by throwing her arms in the air, chanting “na na na,” and asked her if she were Pentecostal.
After the candidate applied, the restaurant did not interview her or otherwise contact her regarding the open position. The applicant’s daughter, who worked at the restaurant, followed up with an assistant manager on her mother’s behalf. The assistant manager told the candidate’s daughter that the restaurant would not hire her mother because it was unusual for servers to wear long skirts in a sports bar. The general manager then confirmed that she would not hire her mother, even though the restaurant was actively seeking servers at the time and restaurant hired five servers within two months, according to the EEOC’s suit.
Illinois: EEOC Sues Alto Ingredients for Disability Discrimination
Disability discrimination
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, when the electrician applied for a job at Alto, he told the company that he was disabled due to back injury sustained during service in the U.S. Navy. The electrician passed Alto’s pre-hire physical and was hired. His employment was successful and free of accidents, and Alto praised him for his technical ability and troubleshooting skills. Nevertheless, after coworkers said they were worried that the electrician had difficulty with climbing stairs and ladders and might fall, Alto informed the electrician it was firing him because of safety concerns. Alto made this decision without any objective or medical evidence that the electrician’s disability presented any actual safety risk. And it did so even though the electrician passed the company’s pre-hire physical, which tested his ability to climb ladders and stairs.
North Carolina: EEOC Sues Champion Media for Disability Discrimination
Disability discrimination
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
According to the lawsuit filed today, a deaf applicant met the qualifications and applied for a job at Champion Media’s printing facility in Lumberton, North Carolina. After participating in an initial conversation over the phone and with the assistance of a video relay service, the applicant was selected for an in-person interview. The applicant requested that Champion Media provide a sign language interpreter as an accommodation for the interview. Instead of providing an interpreter, Champion Media canceled the interview and did not hire the applicant for the job, the EEOC said.
EEOC Settlements
California: Radiant Services to Pay $1.1 Million in EEOC Hiring Discrimination Lawsuit
Race discrimination; National origin discrimination; Sex discrimination
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
The EEOC’s lawsuit charged that since at least 2015, Radiant failed to recruit and hire workers for low-skill positions based on their race (Black, Asian and white) and national origin (non-Hispanic). The lawsuit further alleged that Radiant illegally segregated jobs based on sex.
Georgia: Pilot Air Freight to Pay $400,000 to Settle Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
Disability discrimination
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The EEOC alleged in its lawsuit that, in early June 2019, Thomas Hunt informed his manager that he needed to request leave to see his doctor about some biopsy results. About 10 days later, Hunt was terminated by Pilot, allegedly as a result of a reduction in force. Pilot claimed that Hunt was laid off because he had less tenure than other employees and his position was eliminated. However, in the months leading up to and following Hunt’s discharge, Pilot hired several employees who were not discharged based on tenure and hired an employee in a position very similar to the one that Hunt previously held, and with a higher salary.
North Carolina: Charlotte IHOP to Pay $40,000 in EEOC Religious Discrimination and Retaliation Suit
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Suncakes hired a cook at its Woodlawn Road location in Charlotte in January 2021. At the time of hire, the employee requested and was granted a religious accommodation of not working on Sundays to honor his religious observances. After a change in management in April 2021, the new general manager expressed hostility toward the accommodation and required the employee to work on Sunday, April 25 and Sunday, May 9. After the employee told the general manager that due to his religious beliefs, he would no longer work on Sundays, the general manager fired him. The general manager was also alleged to have made comments to other employees such as, “religion should not take precedence over [the employee’s] job” and that the employee supposedly “thinks it is more important to go to church than to pay his bills.”
Oklahoma: ResourceOne to Pay $47,500 in EEOC Racial Harassment Lawsuit
Genetic information discrimination; Race discrimiation; National origin discrimination
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, in August 2022, a ResourceOne employee showed her supervisor results from an at-home DNA test kit indicating the employee’s ancestry from Cameroon and the Congo. Afterward, the supervisor repeatedly called her “ape” and “Congo.” The supervisor also mocked the employee, saying she was “swinging through the trees” and was an “ape princess” looking for a “king.” The employee asked the supervisor to stop but the harassment continued, the EEOC said.
When the employee complained to a higher-level manager, he asked the employee if she preferred to be called “ape” or “Congo” and did nothing to stop the supervisor’s conduct. The EEOC charged the harassment was so intolerable the employee resigned. Following the employee’s forced resignation, the supervisor obtained her phone number and sent her a text message calling her “Congo,” the EEOC charged.
Pennsylvania: Pro Pallet to Pay $50,000 in EEOC Retaliation Suit
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, a human resources manager received a complaint of sexual harassment against the general manager of the company. When the human resources manager began to investigate the complaint, Pro Pallet’s president and owner rebuked her for carrying out that duty, reassigned important responsibilities of her job to other employees and excluded her from company meetings, the EEOC alleged. As a result of these retaliatory actions by Pro Pallet, the human resources manager was compelled to resign her employment.
Texas: National Telecommuting Institute Settles Discrimination Suit for $1.25 Million
Disability discrimination
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The EEOC’s lawsuit charged NTI with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act when it did not pursue placement or referral of blind and low-vision job applicants as telephone-based customer service agents when the company became aware that applicants used accessibility technologies such as screen readers to convert computer text to speech – presuming that the company’s client employers were not able to support the accommodating technology at that time. The lawsuit also alleged that NTI denied disability-related accommodations during their pre-employment application process. Both practices were unnecessary and exclusionary barriers to employment opportunities since at least 2017.
Washington: Innovative Services Northwest to Pay $136,500 in EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
Disability discrimination
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
The lawsuit alleged ISNW failed to accommodate a former employee of its janitorial services program who sought to return to work after medical treatment for a hip impairment. After the employee made multiple requests for a reasonable accommodation, including job modifications, ISNW deemed her too high-risk to employ unless her medical provider cleared her to return at 100% capacity, forced her to take unpaid leave, and later fired her.
Washington: SmartTalent to Pay $875,000 to Settle EEOC Sex Discrimination Lawsuit
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
The EEOC lawsuit charged that SmartTalent engaged in a pattern of discrimination against women in hiring and job assignments since at least 2015. When the staffing agency received requests for male workers from some clients, the EEOC found that SmartTalent complied with those discriminatory requests instead of rejecting them as unlawful. The company denied female workers job placement opportunities, and dissuaded some of its own recruiters who voiced concerns about such discrimination.
