The Gateway to Civil Suits and an Opportunity for Early Resolution
Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil Mediator
Florida Supreme Court Qualified Arbitrator
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the administrative gateway to filing civil suits, in either state
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or federal court, for discrimination based on age, color, race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, equal pay, GINA or religion. According to the EEOC’s preliminary data for the fiscal year of 2023, the EEOC filed a significantly higher number of lawsuits in 2023. In fact, early statistics show that the Agency initiated over 143 new employment discrimination lawsuits representing more than a 50% increase from 2022. Of these filings, 17.4% or 25 of the suits were “systemic lawsuits” representing the largest number of systemic lawsuits filed over the last five years and double the number of systemic suits filed in 2022. The number of filings is anticipated to continue to increase year over year, especially with their dedicated Systemic Task Force.
Systemic suits are different than the individual charges often filed by aggrieved workers. The word “systemic” carries a weight that no employer wants to bear. According to the EEOC, “systemic practices” cases are defined as a “pattern or practice, policy and/or class cases where the discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic location.” More simply put, it reflects “a pattern of behavior that develops within an organization that disadvantages certain employees and becomes harmful to productivity.” These suits include larger employers such as airlines, Wall Street banks and manufacturing facilities.
Results of just one of the systemic lawsuits filed by the EEOC was quite significant. For instance, on December 19, 2023, the EEOC published a Notice of Settlement report wherein they reported that the EEOC had reached a settlement of an age and disability discrimination charge brought against Scripps after it subjected a group of physicians to a mandatory retirement age, regardless of the physician’s ability to do the job. After a long, protracted, and expensive investigation, Scripps was found to have violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). The EEOC went on to say that “older workers make crucial contributions to our nation’s workforce” and with older workers staying in the workforce longer, it is “critical for employers to understand the ADEA’s protections for older workers.” Bottom line, the EEOC is watching, and with law changes through legislation and case law interpretation, it is time to audit all the policies and practices to avoid litigation.
Results on individual filings are also quite impactful. The EEOC reported on December 20, 2023, that Schuff Steel Company agreed to pay $500,000.00 to settle discrimination claims based on race, national origin, and retaliation, and implement a company-wide policy changes and prevention measures based on claims of harassment by Latino and Black employees in the Eloy, Arizona plant.
After a failed conciliation effort, the EEOC filed a lawsuit resulting in the settlement after an in-depth investigation and discovery period. The settlement resulted in a three- year consent decree requiring payment of the $500,000.00, hiring of an outside consultant or counsel to revise their policies and procedures and to provide anti-discrimination training to its employees, with policies distributed in both English and Spanish, and creating a hotline to report violations.
Another example is the resolution with Triple Canopy, Inc. of Reston, Virginia, a government contractor, in which they were ordered to pay $110,759.00 to a single employee for religious discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to accommodate sincerely held religious beliefs absent undue hardship and prohibits retaliation against those who complain about discrimination. The lawsuit was filed after the pre-litigation voluntary conciliation process was unsuccessful. Most suits of this nature often seek back pay damages, compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive remedies and subsequent oversight and consent decrees and are very costly.
Although the above numbers are significant for EEOC agency filings for systemic practices, they pale in comparison to the number of individual charge filings received by the EEOC in any given year. In 2022, the EEOC received 12,763 charges in the State of Florida alone on 5,192 filings. The 2023 filings are expected to come in higher than the 2022 filings, with future filings to continue to increase year over year.
What all these cases have in common is the failure to reach a resolution through the EEOC voluntary conciliation process. Having participated in this process over the years, I often found it difficult to reach a resolution in factually complicated cases or cases that require time and determination to resolve. As an effective Neutral with a strong employment law background, I am available to mediate.
Early resolution often results in a lower monetary settlement and payout, little to no injunctive relief, less internal disruption due to outside investigation and discovery, less reduced productivity, and would likely not require agency oversight through burdensome consent decrees. If you have a charge and it is in the pre-litigation stage or in litigation, I am available to mediate your case. Statistics show that more than 90% of cases are settled. Let me help you get there.