18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

624 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition the Court concluded that Plaintiff’s claims were too general to identify the transaction at issue, and thus insufficient to meet the requisite pleadings standard. For these reasons, the Court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss. (lii) Litigation Over Class Action Settlement Agreements And Consent Decrees Alexander, et al. v. Bahouz, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5459 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 12, 2021). The City of Syracuse ("Syracuse") and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ)” filed lawsuits in 1978 and 1980, respectively, seeking to challenge the civil service hiring requirements imposed by New York on the ground that the imposed hiring requirements unconstitutionally disfavored African- Americans and women in the police and fire departments. Ultimately, the parties reached a settlement in 1980, resulting in a consent decree that had the effect of permitting Syracuse to institute a hiring preference for African-American and women candidates notwithstanding the civil service requirements. Some 40 years later, the DOJ brought a motion to modify and ultimately dissolve the consent decree under Rule 60(b)(5). The Court granted the motion in part. The DOJ pointed to three potential changes in the law that opened the door for it to dissolve the consent decree, including: (i) the 1991 Amendment to Title VII; (ii) the application of strict scrutiny to race-based affirmative action established in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. , 488 U.S. 469 (1989); and (iii) the application of intermediate scrutiny to gender discrimination. For its part, Syracuse argued that: (i) the government should be judicially estopped from arguing that the consent decree was unlawful; (ii) the government was not challenging the consent decree itself, but rather Syracuse’s application of the consent decree; and (iii) the consent decree as applied survived both strict and intermediate scrutiny. The Court found that the DOJ had made an adequate showing that Syracuse’s practice of using separate eligibility lists for women and African-American candidates for police and fire work, a practice empowered by the consent decree, violated Title VII. As such, the Court modified the consent decree to provide that nothing in the decree shall be construed as insulating Syracuse from a civil suit for applying differing cut-off scores for the civil service examination on the basis of race or gender, including for African-American and female applicants. The Court saw no reason to dispose of Syracuse’s capacity to institute a hiring preference, or even to mandate that Syracuse cease using the separate eligibility lists. Instead, the Court opined that its desire to prevent the unlawful use of its authority was satisfied by withdrawing the consent decree’s capacity to shield Syracuse from lawsuits brought to challenge its application of different cut-off scores for the civil service examination on the basis of race and gender. In all other respects the Court denied the DOJ’s motion because it found that the work of remedying Syracuse’s past discriminatory hiring practices was far from over, and thus the consent decree must remain in force. For these reasons, the Court granted the DOJ’s motion to modify the consent decree in part. Brown, et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3244 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 7, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of retail employees, filed a class action alleging violations of various California wage & hour laws. The Court previously granted the parties’ motion for final settlement approval. As part of the settlement Defendant was required to provide seats to front-end cashiers if a seat was requested. Thereafter, workers who were not part of the class or class settlement, filed a motion for an order to show cause why Defendant should not be sanctioned for allegedly violating the settlement agreement by failing to provide seats to front-end cashiers. After the motion was filed, Defendant reissued a notice to all front-end cashier explaining their right to use and have seats if they choose to do so and reissued instructions to managers regarding the seating program. The Court held that the workers failed to present sufficient evidence to warrant the issuance of an order to show cause for purported violations of the settlement agreement. The workers asserted two fundamental violations, including: (i) seating was tied to positions rather than location without regard to position; and (ii) covered employees were required to request a seat. As to the first alleged violation, the Court determined that the settlement agreement requires that seats be provided to front-end cashiers who had asked for a seat to use while working at a front-end check stand, and not to provide seats to persons employed in other positions with different titles who were called upon to fill in at the cashier. As to the second argument, the Court ruled that the agreement clearly contemplated front-end cashiers. The Court found that the investigation into the seating program that evaluated seats available at different stores failed to establish that Defendant violated the settlement agreement, because it did not require Defendant to place a seat at each check stand or to make sure front-end cashiers used seats, or to have seats “at or in the vicinity of a checkout stand.” Id at. *19. Accordingly, the Court denied the workers’ motion for an order to show cause.