In the 1991 movie “Silence of the Lambs” and the book on which it was based, FBI trainee Clarice Starling is tasked with working with the now-infamous Hannibal Lector to find a serial killer. That movie won a Best Actress...more
A key premise of a class action is that a court can, in essence, review the merits of the class representative’s claims and apply the result of that review across the class as a whole. This concept is most readily found in...more
Title VII was passed with a strong bias toward voluntary, non-litigation methods of dispute resolution. Indeed, the statute requires that even when the EEOC has found probable cause, the Commission “shall endeavor to...more
The most famous, if fictional, San Francisco police Inspector was, of course, Inspector Harry Callahan of the Dirty Harry succession of Clint Eastwood films. The first Dirty Harry movie came out in 1971when its star, known...more
While commentators can, and often do, debate fine points regarding the technical elements of a class action claim, the result in a given case is often dictated by a more fundamental concern. That issue is whether the judge...more
Over the last 5 years, the EEOC has become increasingly aggressive in the bringing and pursuit of broad initiatives and, in particular, class litigation. Cynics can debate whether this springs from a desire to make a...more
Class action lawsuits alleging disability discrimination are uncommon, and those involving disparate impact claims are less common still. This is due, in part, to the fact that unlike other types of discrimination claims, a...more
Many employers, including the EEOC, use criminal background checks as part of their hiring processes....more
Employers originally began using standardized tests to try to find a more objective and hopefully accurate way to select the best candidates for promotion and hire....more
On May 30, 2013, the Sixth Circuit issued its decision in Davis v. Cintas Corporation, Case No. 10-1662 (6th Cir. May 30, 2013), in which it upheld a district court’s refusal to certify a disparate impact Title VII case, but...more
6/1/2013
/ Class Action ,
Commonality ,
Discrimination ,
Disparate Impact ,
Dukes v Wal-Mart ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
FRCP 23(b)(2) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Predominance Requirement ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII
Anyone looking for a case rich in irony need look no further than EEOC v. Kaplan Higher Learning Edu. Corp., Case No. 1:10 CV 2882 (N.D. Ohio, Jan. 28, 2013). Kaplan provides, among other services, online college training,...more
The “frappe” button on a blender is useful for all kinds of recipes when you want to mix things up, but it, until now, has not been considered a viable rule of statutory construction.
We’ve written before (previous...more