plaintiff ’ s favor. If successful, the Rule 56 movant can avoid the timely and expensive costs incurred with proceeding to trial, while also receiving a final (but appealable) judgment absolving them of wrongdoing. One class action in which the defendants prevailed at summary judgment was Davis, et al. v. District Of Columbia , 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31010 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 2024). Here, the plaintiffs filed a class action alleging racial discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act following mass layoffs in connection with defendants’ reduction-in-force (RIF). After terminating 115 positions (primarily in the company’s Supervisory Social Workers (SSWs) and Social Work Assistants (SWA) roles), the District of Columbia and Family Services Agency (CFSA) primarily backfilled the positions lost with a new role, titled the Family Support Worker (FSW), which required a bachelor’s degree and involved duties similar to those of the eliminated positions. Initially, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment, but, following remand from the D.C. Circuit, was directed to address whether the plaintiffs “clear[ed] the statistical hurdle” to establish disparate impact, in light of the seemingly undisciplined system of subjective decision- making used to make termination selections. Id. at *24-25. On remand, the court found that plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of disparate impact due to the disproportionate effect on African-American employees. The defendant filed a renewed motion for summary judgment, arguing that the actions were justified by business necessity. Granting the motion, the court observed that the implementation of the RIF – and not the RIF itself – was at issue, since CFSA was not required to justify execution of the RIF as the “last resort” in the face of budget restraints it was confronting. Id. Regardless, the court reasoned that the defendant presented substantial evidence showing that the restructuring was consistent with business necessity due to a significant decline in cases, and a shift to more complex casework, justifying the transition to the FSW position, despite some of the overlapping job responsibilities. With business necessity established, the court opined that the plaintiffs needed to present alternative methods for achieving the defendants’ legitimate business interests. But the court found plaintiffs’ arguments lacking here as well, observing their proposed alternatives light on detail and “fall[ing] far short of providing the detail necessary to explain why any of their proposed, less discriminatory alternatives . . . would have been an equally valid or less discriminatory alternative to eliminating the [positions].” Id. at *59-60. Finally, while sparsely briefed by the parties, the court also found the other positions were properly selected for termination, as they sensibly relied on seniority and manager input, and thus, unlike SSA and SWA selections, ought not to be assessed using agency-wide statistics. Accordingly, the court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgement. But the defendant in Livingston, et al. v. City Of Chicago , 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11230 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 22, 2024), was not as lucky. The plaintiffs, a group of female paramedics for the City of Chicago, filed a class action alleging gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Illinois Civil Rights Act, and § 1983 of Civil Rights Act. The plaintiffs asserted that the City used exams at the Chicago Fire Department Paramedic Academy that were discriminatory on the basis of their gender, leading to their termination and violating their statutory rights. The City moved for summary judgment on plaintiffs’ disparate treatment and disparate impact claims, as well as for any equal protection violations under § 1983. The City challenged whether plaintiffs could use a “pattern and practice” framework to support their disparate treatment claim, while also claiming that the plaintiffs could not establish the requisite intent component necessary to show disparate treatment. But the court disagreed. It noted the plaintiffs could rely on pattern and practice evidence together with other evidence of individual discrimination, the likes of which presented sufficient evidence to call the City’s alleged reasons for the plaintiffs’ respective terminations into question. The City likewise failed to dismiss the disparate impact claims for certain plaintiffs whom the City believed lacked standing to bring this cause of action, but whom the court concluded had presented sufficient evidence to raise doubts as to the stated reasons for their terminations. Finally, the court allowed the plaintiffs’ § 1983 claims to proceed, but only on the theory that they suffered a constitutional injury caused by someone with final policymaking authority, rather than the alternative route for liability based on the existence of a widespread policy of discrimination. Accordingly, the court denied the City’s motion for summary judgment. As these cases demonstrate, Rule 56 commonly serves as an employer ’ s “last stand” against class action litigation. If unsuccessful, businesses find themselves staring down the barrel of potentially enormous recoveries, to say nothing of the expenses they are destined to incur in preparation for frequently lengthy trials. These risks and the accompanying uncertainty of trial often force defendants into expensive settlements, even where the merits of their defense remain strong. As such, motions for summary judgment remain a defendant ’ s
16
© Duane Morris LLP 2025
Duane Morris Discrimination Class Action Review – 2025
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online