The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed this failure-to-hire case against Stevedoring Services of America, Inc. (SSA) on September 30, 2003 on behalf of a female job applicant. The EEOC alleged that SSA's decision not to hire the employee constituted sex discrimination and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.). The EEOC sought monetary and injunctive relief.

The parties reached a settlement agreement, which the Court entered as a consent decree on October 29, 2004. The decree, which was to last two years, set out a comprehensive set of injunctive provisions to remedy the applicant's injury. The applicant would be hired to a chassis mechanic position with a 60-day probationary period during which she could only be fired for cause. SSA would be required to retain a monitor for the 60-day period to ensure that the applicant be provided equal employment opportunity. If SSA fired the employee, Monitor would make an independent determination of whether the firing was for cause and based on the same standards to which other chassis mechanics at SSA are held. If the termination was not for cause, the applicant would keeps her job and receives $50,000 as a penalty. The Monitor also would have discretion to award up to $50,000 to the applicant as a penalty if SSA undertook a for-cause termination in a situation in which circumstances within SSA's knowledge and control had undermined the applicant's ability to perform.

The decree also contained injuctive provisions designed to eliminate sex discrimination from SSA's hiring process. SSA would be required to, among other things, develop hiring procedures that comply with Title VII, create objective hiring criteria, proved annual training on Title VII-compliant recruiting/hiring to managerial and supervisory staff, develop job descriptions, hire a consultant, and submit to semiannual EEOC hiring audits.

At some point the monitor invoked the penalty provisions of the decree. As the monitor's report is unavailable to the Clearinghouse, it is not clear which penalty provision was invoked.

SSA moved to vacate the monitor's award of $50,000 on August 3, 2006. The EEOC moved for imposition of an additional $50,000 penalty and the costs of defending against SSA's motion. The Court (Judge Percy Anderson) orally denied both motions on November 3, 2006. SSA apparently continued to refuse to pay the $50,000, so the EEOC filed a motion to enforce the consent decree and for sanctions. The Court orally denied the EEOC's motion without prejudice, ruling that even though SSA's refusal to pay the $50,000 penalty was indefensible the EEOC's motion was procedurally improper. A confidential settlement conference was held on October 17, 2007. The docketed minutes of the conference state, "The case is completely settled. The settlement is placed on the record." The Clearinghouse has been unable to ascertain the exact outcome of this issue. The case is closed.

Kenneth Gray - 07/15/2013


compress summary