On September 29, 2006, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada against GNLV, Corp., d/b/a Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino along with several individual employers under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC sought injunctive relief, modification of defendants’ policies, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs. This case was originally assigned to Judge Brian Sandoval and referred to Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen. After Judge Sandoval resigned, the case was reassigned to Chief Judge Jones on September 16, 2009.

The EEOC claimed that because of the defendants’ actions, claimants were exposed to a hostile work environment based on being black, female, or both. Specifically, the claimants alleged that the defendants subjected them to intimidation, threats of physical force, and racial slurs by co-workers, supervisors, and third parties. When the claimants attempted to report such offenses, the defendants allegedly retaliated by issuing verbal or written warnings or suspending the women from work.

On February 15, 2007, the parties began settlement negotiations and were referred to Magistrate Judge George Foley for early neutral evaluation. However, no settlement was reached and parties began the process of litigation in March 2007.

On October 28, 2008, the defendant’s motion to preclude the EEOC from adding additional class members was granted.

On December 12, 2008, the defendants filed for summary judgement on the EEOC’s claim that they had employed discriminatory procedures, on their request for punitive damages, and on the merits of the individual class members’ claims. On June 2, 2009, the court granted summary judgement regarding the EEOC’s pattern or practice claim. 2009 WL 10679135. Based on this ruling, the six individual employees’ claims became moot. On June 12, 2009, the court issued a judgment in favor of the defendants. The court ordered the EEOC to pay $14,681.25. The EEOC objected to these costs.

On August 3, 2009, the EEOC appealed to the Ninth Circuit from the final judgement entered in favor of the defendants. Specifically, they appealed the district court’s dismissal of the six individual employees’ employment discrimination claims and the district court’s order precluding additional class members from being added to the suit. Oral arguments were heard on February 14, 2011. On April 19, 2011 the Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred in dismissing the six individual employees’ claims. The Circuit Court stated that judgment in favor of the defendant on the classwide discrimination claim did not prevent the individual employees from bringing forward their claims. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court barring additional class members from joining the suit. 2011 WL 1461444.

On December 18, 2014, on remand, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment for three of the individual employees’ claims and granted and denied in part for the remaining claims. For the three claimants whose claims survived summary judgment in part, two had summary judgement granted on their claims for hostile work environment, one had summary judgement granted on her disparate treatment claim, and one had summary judgment granted towards her retaliation claim. The court denied summary judgment on two of the claims of retaliation and one claim of hostile work environment. 2014 WL 7365871.

On June 1, 2015, the court granted and denied in part the EEOC’s motion for summary judgment on the defendant’s affirmative defenses initially filed on December 15, 2008. Of the defendant’s 21 affirmative defenses, the court granted summary judgement for failure to state a claim and punitive damages to the extent that those were defenses going to the sufficiency of the pleading; failure to exhaust administrative remedies to the extent they alleged administrative deficiencies to two of the individual employees’ claims; statute of limitations to the extent the defendant claimed the EEOC’s Title VII action was barred by the statute of limitations; lack of jurisdiction towards two of the individual employees’ claims; and unnamed defenses. The court denied summary judgement to the affirmative defenses of failure to state a claim and punitive damages to the extent those defenses raised substantive issues; failure to exhaust administrative remedies to the extent they related to one of the individual employee’s retaliation claim; statute of limitations to the extent the defense applied to any state tort claim being raised by the EEOC; lack of jurisdiction towards one of the individual employee’s claims; non-discriminatory reasons; privilege of an employer; failure to mitigate; laches; and the Nevada Industrial Insurance Act. 2015 WL 3467092.

On June 11, 2015, the EEOC filed a motion to amend the court’s June 1, 2015 opinion. The EEOC argued that the court should have granted summary judgment in its favor on more of the defendant’s affirmative defenses. On July 6, 2015, the court denied this motion towards the defendant’s affirmative defenses of privilege of employer, mitigation of damages, and proximate cause. The court granted summary judgement on the defendant’s affirmative defense of state law. 2015 WL 13505878.

On August 7, 2015, the parties proposed a pretrial order and scheduled a jury trial for April 4, 2016. But on February 17, 2016, the parties reached a settlement that was formally approved on March 1, 2016. Under the settlement, the defendants agreed to comply with the Civil Rights Act, to post a notice on the employee bulletin board regarding employment discrimination until February 2018, and to hold trainings in 2016 and 2017 for all employees concerning the discrimination and anti-retaliation provisions of Title VII. The defendants also agreed to pay the three remaining claimants a total of $30,000. Each party agreed to pay its own attorney fees and costs. The defendants denied all wrongdoing in agreeing to this settlement.

This case is now closed.

Kevin Wilemon - 05/28/2008
Hannah Greenhouse - 10/18/2018


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