BHL Bogen

BHL Bogen
BridgehouseLaw LLP - Your Business Law Firm

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Boeing racial discrimination case

Dealing a victory to the Boeing Co., a federal jury decided last week that the airplane maker had not discriminated against black employees in promotions, as plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit contended.

Discrimination arguments asre most common if it comes to a so called: wrongful termination.

The lawsuit returned was returned to a U.S. District Court in Seattle earlier this month after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a high-profile settlement brokered in 1999 by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Here is the nutshell:
1. Boeing agreed to pay $7.3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 15,000 black employees
2. Boeing admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to make several changes in promotion and hiring practices and in monitoring federal anti-discrimination laws. This got a price sticker of $15 million.

On appeal U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman presided over a new trial. She also oversaw the recent $72.5 million settlement in a gender-bias suit brought on behalf of 17,690 female Boeing employees.

Pechman started with the size. She reduced the size of the class in the racial discrimination case to about 4,200 salaried employees.

Employees excluded from the class started their own law suit.

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