The EEOC pursued claims alleging racial discrimination in EEOC v. 98 Starr Road Operating Co., LLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122364 (D. Vt. July 17, 2023). In that case, the EEOC filed an action alleging that the defendant, a senior care facility, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by subjecting a group of Black employees to racial harassment and maintaining a hostile work environment based on their race. Specifically, the EEOC contended that white residents of the facility subjected Black employees to racial slurs, threats, and physical assaults. The EEOC further alleged that the defendant was aware of the racial abuse and failed to take remedial action. The defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that it could not be held liable for the actions of its residents. The court denied the motion. The court rejected the defendant ’ s argument on the grounds that courts have held that long-term care facilities may be liable under Title VII for hostile work environment claims if the facility knew or should have known about the harassment of its employees, but failed to take appropriate remedial measures. Id. at *16. The court also analyzed whether the EEOC had plausibly alleged aggrieved individual existed who suffered severe or pervasive harassment based on their race. The court concluded that the EEOC ’ s allegations of repeated racial insults, physical assaults, and threats were sufficient to establish a hostile work environment under Title VII. The court determined that the EEOC ’ s complaint plausibly alleged racial harassment that was sufficiently objectively and subjectively severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the aggrieved individuals’ employment and to create an abusive working environment, and thereby plausibly alleged a hostile work environment claim pursuant to Title VII. Id. at *21-22. For these reasons, the court denied the defendant ’ s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Finally, in EEOC v. 1901 South Lamar, LLC, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223816 (W.D. Tex. Dec. 15, 2023), the EEOC filed an action on behalf of charging party Kellie Connolly, alleging that the defendants discriminated against her on the basis of her pregnancy in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), and the Magistrate Judge recommended that the motion be denied. The EEOC asserted that the defendants hired Connolly to work as a bartender at Corner Bar in Austin, Texas in September 2020. Id . at *3. Connolly notified the defendants she was pregnant on or about January 31, 2021, and the defendants reduced her work hours after she became visibly pregnant around March 2021. Connolly was subsequently hospitalized due to a virus, and her manager terminated her employment on June 25, 2021, while she was still in the hospital, telling her that “she was becoming too much of a liability” and that the defendants were “parting ways until after the baby.” Id . The defendants argued that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over them under Title VII because Corner Bar employed fewer than the statutory minimum of 15 employees at the relevant time. Id . at *4. The EEOC argued that Title VII's numerosity requirement is not jurisdictional. The Magistrate Judge agreed with the EEOC that the defendants’ argument was precluded by U.S. Supreme Court precedent because the employee-numerosity requirement in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b) "is an element of a plaintiff's claim for relief, not a jurisdictional issue." Id . The defendants also argued that the action should be dismissed because the defendants were not an integrated enterprise and the EEOC’s contention that they were was made solely in order to obtain jurisdiction. The Magistrate Judge also rejected this argument on the basis that the EEOC submitted evidence in support of its allegations and therefore its
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The EEOC Litigation Review – 2024
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