In April 2000, the EEOC brought this suit against Hitchen Lucerne, Inc., d/b/a Lucerne Valley Market/Ace Hardware, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The EEOC alleged that the defendant violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") by terminating the charging party, a sixty-two year old female employee because of her sex and age and failing to rehire her in retaliation for her complaints of the discrimination.

In June 2001, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment. In May 2003, the motion was granted in part and denied in part, with the court rejecting the retaliation claims. The parties took part in a settlement conference in July 2003. After some discovery and scheduling orders, the parties settled in February 2004 through a consent decree.

The one-year decree, containing non-discrimination and non-retaliation clauses, required the defendant to: provide Title VII and ADEA training for its managers, expunge the charging party's personnel file from all references to the charges of discrimination, revise its staff handbook to include age as a protected EEO category, post a notice of employee rights, report to the EEOC every six months, and pay $9,500 to the charging party.

Jason Chester - 07/05/2007


compress summary