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  • Discrimination
  • Age Discrimination
  • Race and Sex Discrimination
  • Religious and Disability Discrimination
  • Sexual Orientation Discrimination
  • Retaliation
  • Housing Discrimination
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  • Federal Overtime Law
  • Illinois Overtime Law
  • Indiana Overtime Law
  • Iowa Overtime Law
  • Michigan Overtime Law
  • Pennsylvania Overtime Law
  • Wisconsin Overtime Law
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Successes in the Year 2005

In 2005, the firm expanded its practice to become a full service employment law firm (excluding ERISA and Worker’s Compensation) along with the civil rights work. The year was marked by a significant increase in non-compete cases and executive compensation negotiations as well as one unusual case involving the Mexican severance laws. The increased workload was no problem, however, as in August the firm added its sixth attorney.

The following are some cases that came to verdict, judgment, or settlement in 2005. Please note that cases can take anywhere from a few months to several years to reach their conclusions.

04 MR 495
(Declaratory Judgment on Mexican Severance Law)
In this highly unusual case, our client was working for an American firm in Mexico when she was terminated. Under the Mexican Severance Law she was entitled to severance in the amount of three months pay plus 21 days for each year of service, and continued salary until the severance was paid. In Mexico the case resulted in a verdict for our client in excess of $100,000 and the company filed a declaratory judgment action in Illinois to have a court declare that Mexican Severance Law did not apply to our client. Although technically a case where we were the defendant, we were still very much in the position of trying to collect money for our client. We settled the case to her satisfaction.

03 C 2121
(Sex Discrimination, Retaliation)
What made this multi-plaintiff sex discrimination case unusual was that it involved a woman discriminating against other women and then retaliating against them for filing charges of discrimination. It was also a direct evidence case wherein the Executive Director asked two of our clients why they were doing men’s jobs, and fired another for insubordination—one insubordinate act being the filing of a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. Thousands of pages of documents had to be reviewed for this case and because of its size, the case actually settled in parts. The settlements were to our clients’ satisfaction.

02 C 1125
(Class Action Reverse Discrimination)
Although reverse discrimination is unusual, this case involved an African-American base manager of a bus company reducing routes and denying work to non-black drivers. Because of the number of drivers involved, it was handled as a class action. It was another case involving thousands of pages of documents and nearly 40 depositions. We eventually settled the case for the class.

04 C 7574
(Overtime and Family and Medical Leave Act)
In this combination overtime and FMLA case our client was a manual laborer who was paid a straight hourly wage for all his work. We sued to collect the extra “half” of time and a half he was owed, plus liquidated damages. (See our Overtime page.) In addition, our client had come down with some serious illnesses that required him to take time off of work. In late 2004 he was terminated for excessive absenteeism which he claimed was in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act. We settled the case to his satisfaction.

04 C 4209
(Family and Medical Leave Act, Retaliation)
Our client had complained about offensive sexual conduct in the workplace. Shortly thereafter she went on FMLA maternity leave. Upon her return, she was fired on the spot. Although we did not pursue the underlying sexual harassment claims, this case was filed for violations of the FMLA and retaliatory wrongful termination. We settled the case to her satisfaction.

04 C 5855
(Age Discrimination)
Our client was an automobile sales manager. He was 62 years old. The dealership promoted another sales manager over him who started to make a number of age biased comments including “Why don’t you just retire” and “I bet you were good when you were young” and referring to him as “Old Bill.” In spite of his complaints, the comments did not stop. Eventually, in spite of his satisfactory performance, our client was terminated and replaced by younger employees. We settled the case to his satisfaction.

04 C 7360
(Class Action Overtime)
Our clients started as eight Mexican laborers who were being paid a salary for what should have been hourly work. After we filed an overtime complaint for them, nine more individuals joined the case. Much of this case was handled in Spanish with interpreters for depositions. We settled the case to their satisfaction.

In addition to these settlements of cases pending in court, numerous other cases were settled while they were still pending before the EEOC and IDHR. Total recover including settlements and severance in 2005 exceeded $1 million dollars as of October 2005.