The New York District Office of the EEOC brought this suit against Carrols Corporation, which operates more than 300 Burger King restaurants, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in November 1998. The complaint is unavailable, but a court opinion indicates that the EEOC brought suit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that the defendant (1) subjected female employees to a hostile work environment, (2) failed to remedy alleged instances of sexual harassment and retaliated against employees who complained of sexual harassment, and (3) constructively discharged employees by failing to remedy the hostile work environment. The plaintiff also brought claims on behalf of 511 individual female employees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §2000e-5(f)(1). The plaintiff, among other things, sought a permanent injunction enjoining the defendant from engaging in any discriminatory employment practices and monetary damages for the individual employees affected by the defendant’s unlawful practices.
After the parties conducted some written discovery, the defendant, on June 18, 2002, moved for summary judgment. On July 24, 2002, the plaintiff filed a cross-motion for a continuance to permit additional discovery. In support of its motion for summary judgment, the defendant argued that the plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence to sustain a prima facie pattern or practice claim based on a hostile work environment theory. In response, the plaintiff contended that it had an insufficient opportunity to conduct discovery. On November 20, 2002, District Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., after conferring with the magistrate judge regarding the status of discovery in the case, found that several discovery disputes remained unresolved and that the defendant’s motion for summary judgment was premature. Therefore, he denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, denied the plaintiff’s cross-motion for a continuance as moot, and ordered that the case be recommitted to the magistrate judge.
On January 16, 2004, the defendant filed a renewed motion for summary judgment, seeking dismissal of all of the plaintiff’s claims. On April 20, 2005, Judge Scullin granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment with respect to the plaintiff’s pattern or practice claims of sexual harassment, failure to remedy, retaliation, and constructive discharge; this left only the plaintiff’s claims on behalf of the individual employees remaining. He found that the plaintiff’s allegations fell short of showing that even a substantial minority of the defendant’s female employees experienced harassment or that sexual harassment was defendant’s “standard operating procedure—the regular rather than the unusual practice.” Therefore, Judge Scullin concluded that the plaintiff had not shown that there was a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether a pattern or practice of a hostile environment existed in the defendant’s restaurants.
On February 27, 2006, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment against the individual claims brought by the plaintiff. On March 2, 2011, Judge Scullin granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Of the 511 individual employees that the plaintiff had identified as having been aggrieved by the defendant’s discrimination, Judge Scullin granted summary judgment for the defendant as to 380 of those individuals, finding that their claims failed for procedural (untimely claims, not supported by admissible evidence, etc.) and substantive (non-actionable sexual harassment and non-actionable retaliation) reasons. However, he found that 131 individual claims raised an issue of fact and survived the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.
On January 10, 2013, after the parties engaged in settlement negotiations, Judge Scullin signed a consent decree, stipulated to by the parties, in favor of the plaintiff. The decree was to last two years and enjoined the defendant from harassing and retaliating toward any of the claimants or any other female because of her sex and required the defendant to: (1) pay $2,500,000 to the claimants, (2) provide training on sexual harassment and harassment reporting procedures, (3) implement anti-discrimination policies; (4) maintain a toll-free complaint hotline and dedicated email address for employees to file complaints of sexual harassment, (5) conduct audits of HR practices, (6) implement criterion related to adherence of equal employment opportunity policies on its manager evaluation forms, and (7) provide the EEOC with a written summary narrative report on the status of its compliance with the decree every 180 days. On January 26, 2015, Judge Scullin approved the parties’ stipulation of dismissal of this case with prejudice. This case is now closed.
Kevin Wilemon - 08/21/2008
Lisa Limb - 04/06/2019
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