On July 19, 2001, female employees of an insurance brokerage firm filed this class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs sued Willis Group Holdings (Willis) and its American affiliates and subsidiaries under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for claims of sex discrimination. The plaintiffs, represented by two private firms, sought damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs. They claimed that the defendants had a pattern and practice of discriminating against female employees—in compensation, assignment of projects and promotions, various terms and conditions of employment—and that an employee retaliated against one woman who complained about Willis’ discrimination. The case was assigned to Judge Gerard E. Lynch.
Two of the original named plaintiffs accepted offers of judgment from the defendant for $75,000 each on December 8, 2003. But the two remaining named plaintiffs continued to pursue their claims. The defendant filed separate motions for summary judgment against each named plaintiff on July 15 and August 23, 2004.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint on September 17, 2004, claiming that the defendant also violated New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey anti-discrimination laws. On March 21, 2005, the court certified a class consisting of "all current and former female employees who have been employed by the defendants in positions eligible for the award of officer titles” between 1998 and 2001.
On April 8, 2005, the court granted summary judgment for the defendant on the named-plaintiff’s pay disparity claims because they fell outside the statute of limitations. However, the court allowed claims that were not excluded by the statute of limitations to proceed. The court also granted summary judgment for the defendants on the plaintiff's constructive discharge claim because she had not shown any evidence that her co-worker’s actions were motivated by her gender. And three days later, the court issued an opinion granting summary judgment for the defendants on the second named plaintiff’s claims because those were also outside the statute of limitations. However, the court allowed her to proceed on all of her pay disparity claims, as well as her claims about demotion, failure to promote, and retaliation.
The defendant filed a third motion for summary judgment on December 9, 2005, and a motion for sanctions, charging the plaintiff with bringing frivolous charges under New York law. The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ state claims on July 25, 2006 but denied the motion for sanctions. The court concluded that the plaintiff’s New York claims could not stand because her superiors in Massachusetts had set the salary rates, not her superiors in New York. However, the plaintiff’s claims under New Jersey and Massachusetts state law survived. The Second Circuit affirmed this order in Hnot v. Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., 234 Fed. Appx. 13 (2d Cir. 2007).
The suit proceeded on track for trial for the next year, but the parties settled in 2007. On October 18, 2007, the plaintiffs submitted a motion for preliminary approval of a consent decree, and on October 22, the court granted preliminary approval. The court granted final approval on February 25, 2008, retaining jurisdiction over the decree. The court awarded a consent judgment for the plaintiffs’ representation providing one firm more than $2.5 million and the other more than $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses. The consent decree was set to last for three years. The settlement fund to the plaintiff class was $8.5 million. The consent decree said that an expert witness would be used to determine the total lost wages of each individual class member. And the settlement provided no rights to opt out and indefinitely released the defendant from future liability.
The consent decree also specified injunctive relief that would be subject to outside monitoring. The defendants agreed to develop new objective systems for performance evaluation and compensation of employees and would submit those to the monitor. They also agreed to provide data on compensation and promotion practices to the monitor and to comply with the state and federal statutes cited in the complaint. The parties appointed the monitor at the defendant’s expense.
The court retained jurisdiction through the duration of the consent decree, which expired in 2011. The case is now closed.
Eric Weiler - 07/01/2010
Nathan Santoscoy - 03/17/2019
compress summary
