The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, and the court granted the motion. The plaintiff asserted that the defendant terminated his employment, along with approximately 100 other employees, as part of a work shortage reduction-in-force. The plaintiff asserted that the terminations were discriminatory and that a majority of the terminated employees were Black. Further, the plaintiff contended that when the defendant began rehiring terminated employees, White employees were rehired more often than Black employees. The court ruled that the plaintiff failed to identify a specifically, facially neutral policy that the defendant employed which was responsible for the alleged workforce reduction disparities. The court stated that to establish a disparate impact claim, a plaintiff must identify a specific policy or practice responsible for the layoff, which the plaintiff failed to do. The court opined that simply alleging that the defendant had a layoff and rehired some of the laid off employees was insufficient to support a disparate impact claim. Accordingly, the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss. Such was the case in AnoJones, et al. v. Local 798 Of The United Association Of Journeymen & Apprentices Of The Plumbing & Pipefitting Industries Of The U.S. & Canada, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53447 (N.D. Okla. Mar. 26, 2024). The plaintiff, in Jones I filed an action alleging violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for failure to enforce the National Pipeline Agreement collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which the court previously dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies before the EEOC. In Jones II , the court held that the plaintiff failed to state a claim for failure to enforce the National Pipeline Agreement under § 1981 because his allegations failed to plead facts that could lead to the inference of intentional prevention by the Union. The court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim that Local 798 failed to enforce the terms of the agreement due to racial discrimination, and dismissed the disparate treatment claim under Title VII for failure to plead intent. In the plaintiff’s Third Amended Complaint (TAC), he filed a class action suit against the defendant and added additional plaintiffs. The TAC alleged previous claims under § 1981 and Title VII, as well as introducing new claims for race discrimination under § 1981. The defendant again moved to dismiss the claims, and the court granted the motion. The court ruled that although the TAC alleged several disturbing instances which recounted racist behavior of other union members, even accepting those allegations as true, they were insufficient to allege an intent by the Union to create a hostile working environment. Id. at *43. The court opined that the allegations established that individual union members exhibited racist conduct, but that the allegations were insufficient to support a claim against the Union. The court also determined that the plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts from which a jury could plausibly infer that the Union failed to enforce his rights because the Union was motivated by discriminatory animus. The court concluded that the allegations identified discriminatory acts by individuals other than Local 798 of which the Union was aware, but it did not allege facts from which an inference could be drawn that the Union intended to discriminate against the plaintiff or other Union members. Id. at *46-47. Accordingly, the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss. Similarly, in Dancer, et al. v. United States, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45881 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 15, 2024), the plaintiffs, a group of Black individual residents of the Northside Neighborhood of Kalamazoo, Michigan filed a class action on their own behalf or on the behalf of other deceased individuals alleging that the defendants, the United States, the local government unit, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and local companies failed to protect them from airport pollution and chemical discharge from a nearby paper mill and water- processing plant. The plaintiffs alleged that other neighboring areas of the city were protected from the pollutants because the neighborhoods were comprised of primarily white residents. The defendants moved to dismiss the claims, and the court granted the motion. The court determined first that the federal government and the EPA were entitled to sovereign immunity. The plaintiffs had argued that President Joe Biden’s order titled “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All” exempted the government and the EPA from sovereign immunity. The court rejected the argument on the basis that the plaintiffs failed to establish any evidence from the Executive Order that indicated that the government was waiving its right to sovereign immunity. The court also found that the plaintiffs’ assertion that the state protected other white communities in Michigan by shutting down hazardous facilities but failed to protect Black residents in the same manner was without merit as they did not establish that Michigan, the city, or the mayor of the city played any role in shutting down the Michigan facility, or that any different treatment was due to race discrimination. The court also granted the defendants’ motion with respect to the plaintiffs’ claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Accordingly, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Another successful motion to dismiss transpired in Webb, et al. v. Walmart Inc., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47226
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Duane Morris Discrimination Class Action Review – 2025
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