New York Employment Lawyer Blog

Sports Illustrated reports on June 12 that a former employee of NASCAR has filed a $225 million lawsuit against NASCAR, citing sexual, racial, and gender discrimination.

The plaintiff, a former Nationwide Series inspector, alleges atrocious behavior from her co-workers, alleging that they called her a “Nappy-Headed Ho,” made repeated references to the Ku Klux Klan, and stating that two went as far as exposing themselves to her. NASCAR has suspended the two accused employees without explanation.

The plaintiff called NASCAR an “old boys club” and went to great lengths in describing the insular nature of the company. “They need to stop hiring ignorant sisters, cousins and uncles [of theirs] and start hiring qualified, educated people to work their billion-dollar business,” she said in an interview.

NASCAR has responded, saying that the plaintiff never filed a complaint, and therefore could not blame NASCAR for not being able to stop the behavior. The CEO of NASCAR said that he had not been aware of the situation and the claims would be immediately investigated.

The fact is, racial, sexual, and gender discrimination is never to be tolerated. If you feel as if you have been subject to any of these types of unfair treatment, please feel free to contact us for an initial consultation without charge at which time we would be pleased to discuss your issue.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Gender discrimination , Racial Discrimination , Sexual Harassment

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Over the past several months, we have discussed several significant issues in the field of employment discrimination. We have touched upon everything from evidence in discrimination cases to recent verdicts and decisions to emerging trends and ideas in the field.

But, perhaps, the most significant item that had been discussed were the recent statistics regarding claims filed by employees in the workplace. This means that employees are further realizing and becoming aware of the rights they have against discrimination in all its forms. This is particularly gratifying.

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Posted In: Age Discrimination , Employment Discrimination , Employment Law , Evidence , Gender discrimination , Pregnancy Discrimination , Racial Discrimination , Retaliation , Sexual Harassment , Sexual Orientation Discrimination

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A recent news story about a former Weather Channel Anchor Woman and her sexual harassment suit against her former employer has prompted us to take some time in a blog entry to further reflect on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Sexual harassment, like other types of discrimination, is not something that must be proven with a "smoking gun", there will never be a memorandum sent around encouraging such conduct in the workplace. Rather, this discrimination is done clandestinely, behind closed doors. It is ever important for both men and women in the workplace, to remain aware of their rights and protections under the law with respect to this important issue.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Sexual Harassment

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In a recent decision, in the case of Weiss v. Morgan Stanley, 05-cv-3310, the Court clearly pointed out that, “A plaintiff may prevail on a claim for retaliation even when the underlying conduct complained of was not in fact unlawful so long as she can establish that she possessed a good faith, reasonable belief that the underlying challenged actions of the employer violated [the] law.”

It is, therefore, essential that we keep in mind the fact that, although, the plaintiff may prevail in the underlying discrimination claim, there is a reasonable basis to pursue a retaliation claim so long as the sentiments expressed in the Weiss case quoted above, exist.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Gender discrimination , Sexual Harassment

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A state Judge in Brooklyn has re-confirmed the broad goals of the New York City Human Rights Law. In Bumpus v. New York City Transit Authority, 18 Misc.3d 1131(A) (N.Y. Feb. 13, 2008), the plaintiff was a transgender woman, who had been born anatomically male, but lived her life with a female identity and lived each day as a woman. She complained that she had been discriminated against by a Transit Authority employee, who had harassed her and made “transgender-phobic epithets” to her for a period of approximately 10 minutes.

The court denied the Transit Authority’s motion to dismiss the case, reaffirming that “[t]he Human Rights Law affords protection to transgender people in New York City.” The Court noted that “[t]he New York City Human Rights Law was intended to be more protective than the state and federal counterpart,” and that “[t]he legislative history contemplates that the Law be independently construed with the aim of making it the most progressive in the nation.”

In its decision regarding the New York City Human Rights Law, the court relied on the case of Selmanovic v. NYSE Group, a case in which, we are proud to say, our office participated. We remain committed to fighting to ensure that the New York City Human Rights Law remains one of the most stringent and protective human rights laws in the country.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Gender discrimination , Sexual Harassment , Sexual Orientation Discrimination

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On March 6, 2008, an article appeared in the New York Times, reflecting the increase in complaints of discrimination in the workplace. The article went on to state that, “federal job discrimination complaints by workers against private employers rose by 9% last year, the biggest annual increase since the early 1990s.” According to the statistics, this was the most filed since 2002.

Based on the article, one might reasonably conclude that job discrimination has intensified. Another reasonable conclusion might also be that more individuals who suffer discrimination in the workplace have been able to observe, from their experiences, that those who complain of discrimination do not suffer the results of reporting discrimination to the same extent they did previously. They have had an opportunity to witness friends and colleagues in the workplace who have reported discrimination but somehow did not suffer the results of discrimination for reporting what they recognized was a violation of their human rights.

There is a reasonable likelihood to believe that it is not necessarily the increase in discriminatory conduct that caused the number of individuals who report discrimination to be greater than before. Instead it will be that they have learned that reporting discrimination does not necessarily produce retaliation. The strong retaliation laws that our lawmakers have enacted throughout our country have, in large part, effectively protected those who report discrimination from the retaliatory conduct they feared in the past. This is certainly a hopeful result.

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Posted In: Age Discrimination , Employment Discrimination , Employment Law , Gender discrimination , Racial Discrimination , Retaliation , Sexual Harassment , Sexual Orientation Discrimination

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This month, Anucha Browne Sanders and Madison Square Garden settled Sanders’ sexual harassment suit for $11.5 million. This development comes some two months after plaintiff Sanders was awarded $11.6 million in punitive damages by a New York federal jury.

Before the settlement, the case was to enter into another damages phase where Judge Gerard E. Lynch was to hear arguments and decide on the outstanding question of Sanders’ compensatory damages, which would include back pay. This additional damages phase would potentially have added millions to the jury’s verdict.

Even though the Sanders case is now behind MSG, the Garden has not resolved all of the sexual harassment claims made against it. Former New York Rangers ice-skating cheerleader Courtney Prince filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Madison Square Garden in New York federal court in 2004. Prince’s trial is set to be heard early in 2008.

It is unclear what effect Sanders’ trial and subsequent settlement will have on the Prince matter. Sanders’ case may have made it more difficult for the plaintiffs and defendants in the Prince case to arrive at an agreement; in the wake of the $11.5 million settlement, the stakes are considerably higher. MSG had previously rejected the recommendation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to settle the matter for about $800,000.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Sexual Harassment

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Personalities from basketball courts have made appearances in courts of law lately. A New York federal jury handed down an $11.6 million verdict this past October in the Isiah Thomas harassment case. On Thursday, Dec. 6, a California state court jury awarded a former Fresno State women’s basketball coach just over $19 million in damages on her gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation claims.

Many civil verdict awards are comprised of both economic and non-economic components, both of which are sometimes broken down even further. In the case of the Fresno coach, plaintiff Stacy Johnson-Klein’s award broke down into four components: Past economic losses, future economic losses, past non-economic losses and future non-economic losses.

Ms. Johnson-Klein’s past economic losses component of the award, $634,254 , covers the period between the coach’s firing in 2005 until the commencing of the trial. Past economic losses typically includes lost wages and benefits. Ms. Johnson-Klein’s future economic losses component, $4,440,419 , projects the plaintiff’s losses if she had not been fired, and typically includes lost wages and benefits measured from the trial through the plaintiff’s work life expectancy. This point is usually the plaintiff’s retirement age, typically between age 65 and 70.

The non-economic components are awarded to the plaintiff for pain and suffering that she experienced as a result of the defendants’ conduct, independent of economic damages. Ms Johnson-Klein was awarded $3 million for past non-economic losses and $11 million for future non-economic losses. In some cases, the jury may award the plaintiff punitive, or exemplary, damages in order to punish the defendants’ willful misconduct which led to the suit. However, in the Johnson-Klein case, there was no punitive damages award against Fresno state; this is because in California, punitive damages may not be recovered by a plaintiff against a defendant that is a public entity.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Gender discrimination , Retaliation , Sexual Harassment

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This past October, the large advertising agency Dentsu America and its CEO were named as defendants in a sex harassment and discrimination lawsuit, Biegel v. Dentsu Holdings USA, Inc., filed by one of its former creative directors in New York federal court. Plaintiff Steve Biegel alleges, among other things, that while in Tokyo on business, he and his co-workers were compelled to attend a work outing at a Japanese bath house with one of his superiors at Dentsu, CEO Toyo Shigeta. In court papers, Biegel alleges that while at the bath house, he and his co-workers were “expected to climb naked” into a bath with Shigeta. Biegel claims in his complaint that he was “offended and humiliated by this outrageous, sexually degrading experience imposed upon him as a condition of his employment.”

The defendants in their court papers do not deny that Biegel was taken to the Japanese bath house by Shigeta. Instead, the defendants challenge his allegation by claiming that Biegel waited over a year-and-a-half after purportedly visiting the bath house before he allegedly spoke to Shigeta about it. Further, the defendants maintain that the bath house is not “objectively offensive.” In moving to dismiss the complaint, the defendants argue that “well-known tourist guides such as Time Out Tokyo, Frommer’s Tokyo, Lonely Planet Tokyo and Rough Guide to Tokyo depict the Bathhouse as a classy, clean and traditional family venue...” The court papers also note that bath house patrons are provided with robes during their experience.

The defendants’ arguments with respect to the bath house may pose some challenges. Plainly, the disclaimer-like assertion, that bath robes are provided to patrons, fails to address the simple fact that the robes eventually are meant to come off, when one is stepping into the communal bath. Also, it's not effective for defendants to argue that bath houses have been a major part of Japanese culture and tradition, since today the bath house appears to be in decline. According to web-japan.org and japan-guide.com, the Japanese bath house, or Sento, has been decreasing in numbers in recent decades as private baths have become prevalent in Japanese homes.

Further, United States discrimination laws rely on the perspective of the reasonable person to determine what is "sexual harassment." In our experience, international companies with offices in the U.S. may encounter issues where American social norms and broad human rights laws leave less room for conduct that may otherwise be considered acceptable in other countries.

When it comes to sexual harassment and the workplace, the maxim, “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye” sometimes becomes conventional wisdom. Corporate outings at bathhouses, brothels (also alleged in Biegel’s complaint) and strip clubs are activities that can become the genesis of sex harassment and discrimination claims, regardless of which country these outings occur in.

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Posted In: Employment Discrimination , Sexual Harassment

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