On February 9, 1998, a group of black former employees of defendants filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division against Ingersoll under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, asked the court for monetary and injunctive relief, claiming class-wide discrimination in promotions, compensation, and hiring. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had engaged in the following employment practices that resulted in unlawful race discrimination: (1) failure to post or disclose job promotions and job openings; (2) use of word-of-mouth hiring and nepotism in a predominantly white work force; (3) race-coding of applications; and (4) use of a subjective decisionmaking process by a predominantly white supervisory staff in hiring applicants, promoting employees and assigning wages.

On August 23, 1999, the Court (Judge Philip G. Reinhard) partially granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. The Court certified the class with regard to the hiring process, but refused to certify the compensation class and the promotion class on the ground that these claims were highly individualized and there were not enough similar situated plaintiffs.

On January 4, 2000, the Court (Judge Reinhard) granted the defendants' motion for partial summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiffs could not use the single employer theory as the defendants were separate corporate entities. After that, the parties engaged in multiple discovery disputes. On July 13, 2001, the parties reached a settlement, and the Court dismissed the case. The details of the settlement agreement are unavailable.

Kunyi Zhang - 11/05/2010


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