On September 30, 2003, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed this suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York against defendant First Wireless Groups, Inc. The case was assigned to Judge Joanna Seybert. The EEOC alleged discrimination on the basis of race and national origin in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and retaliation for participating in protected activities. Specifically, the complaint alleged the defendants paid Hispanic employees less than Asian employees even though the Asian employees were less productive. In addition, the complaint alleged that Asian employees retaliated against Hispanic employees and management following their opposition of the discrimination via intimidation, removal of privileges, banning the speaking of Spanish and terminating or constructively discharging a number of employees who signed a petition.

On October 23, 2003, thirteen plaintiffs filed a motion to intervene on the lawsuit; all were represented by the same (private) attorney. Judge Seybert granted the motion in August 2004. The intervenors filed their own complaint in November 2003 where they made nearly identical allegations to those of the EEOC. Again in 2005, another plaintiff moved to intervene with very similar allegations. Her motion was granted, too bringing the total number of claimants (whose claims underlay the EEOC lawsuit) and intervenors to several dozen.

After several years of discovery, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment in March 2007. The defendant argued that evidence from discovery showed that, even assuming all of plaintiffs’ evidence was true, no discrimination took place. In February 2008, Judge Seybert granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion; she found that the disparate pay claim turned on contested factual issues, and therefore should proceed to trial. The Court found, also, that there were disputed facts relating to whether two particular individuals faced retaliation. Accordingly, the court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the retaliation claim for two claimants but granted the motion for everyone else.

On October 30, 2008, the EEOC and plaintiff-intervenors entered into a consent decree with First Wireless. While the defendant did not admit fault, it agreed to pay $435,000 in back pay and compensatory damages, inclusive of attorneys fees. In addition, First Wireless agreed to post a notice of the settlement in a space visible to employees, provide neutral references for aggrieved employees, require all supervisory employees to undergo eight hours of equal employment training, and provide reports to the EEOC every six months for four years, the duration of the consent decree.

No further action is noted on the docket of this case and it is presumably closed.

Hope Brinn - 10/05/2018


compress summary