On July 12th, 2000 eight female employees filed suit in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois against DaimlerChrysler Corp. All of the plaintiffs worked at DaimlerChrysler's assembly plant in Belvedere, IL. They alleged a variety of claims that varied from plaintiff to plaintiff including age, gender, and race discrimination, and violations of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). The principle specific allegations concerned DaimlerChrysler's failure to promote and train fairly and to accommodate one plaintiff's diabetes.

Judge Philip G. Reinhard referred the case to Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney who presided over discovery. As discovery progressed the configuration of the plaintiff group changed. Several plaintiffs dropped the private counsel they had jointly employed and appeared pro se. The court dismissed the complaints of several plaintiffs with prejudice for failure to prosecute when they failed to attend discovery hearings. On May 15th, 2001 four of the original plaintiffs filed an amended complaint setting out common allegations of age, race, and gender discrimination, and violations of the ADA.

On July 9th, 2001 DaimlerChrysler filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that plaintiffs were tardy in serving the original complaint. Plaintiffs' counsel had missed the deadline by a day. The district judge (Judge Reinhard) agreed that DaimlerChrysler was correct but exercised judicial discretion and extended the deadline, and denied the motion.

Discovery continued over the next year. Several more plaintiffs were dismissed, one with and one without prejudice. Eventually individual settlements were reached with each of the remaining plaintiffs. The exact terms of these settlements are not available. The case was completely dismissed on October 29th, 2002.

Michael Perry - 06/16/2010


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