Discrimination & Harassment Cases
Volkswagen AG Age Discrimination Collective Action
Suzy Reingold v. Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
Ikon Office Solutions Race Discrimination Class Action
Super Steel Schenectady Race Harassment Class Action
A class of African-American employees was subjected to death threats and racist harassment. Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight settled the case for $1.25 million in damages and a consent decree that effected significant reform in Super Steel Schenectady.
READ MORECracker Barrel Race Discrimination Class Action
David Sanford was lead counsel in a race discrimination class action suit against Cracker Barrel restaurants. The case concerned discrimination in pay and promotion, and also involved discrimination against African-American customers. The United States Department of Justice intervened in the case after five years of litigation and the suit settled for $8.7 million.
General Electric Race Discrimination Action
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight represented Marc Thomas, President and CEO of General Electric Aviation Materials, in his suit on behalf of himself and other African-American executives at GE. Mr. Thomas alleged racial discrimination in pay and promotions at the highest levels of the GE Corporate structures. Sanford Heisler settled the case for undisclosed terms.
READ MORESmith Nephew Race Discrimination Class Action
U.S. Marshals Race Discrimination Class Action
John Elway Toyota Race Discrimination
De Niro Lawsuit
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight is representing Graham Chase Robinson, a former longtime employee of actor Robert De Niro, in her claims of gender discrimination and retaliation against Mr. De Niro and his corporate alter ego, Canal Productions, Inc. (“Canal”). The civil trial began Monday, October 30, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit was filed on October 3, 2019.
READ MOREOgletree PAGA Lawsuit
Merck Gender Pregnancy Discrimination Class Action
UPDATE: On April 27, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted Plaintiffs’ motion to conditionally certify a collective action under the Equal Pay Act in the gender discrimination suit filed against pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Inc. The Court further ordered that thousands of female Merck sales representatives should be given notice and an opportunity to join the case. The lawsuit alleges that Merck systematically discriminates against female sales representatives generally, and against pregnant women in particular, in pay, promotions, and other terms and conditions of employment. The Court found that Plaintiffs’ allegations of discrimination in pay sufficed to warrant notifying potential class members of the EPA lawsuit. Plaintiffs’ evidence included information suggesting that Named Plaintiffs were paid less than men they identified as comparators, as well as a preliminary expert report finding those female sales representatives in the S1 and S2 tiers earned less per year on average than male sales representatives in those tiers.
READ MOREUniversity of Arizona Gender Discrimination – Collective Action
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight added another female former dean to the gender discrimination collective action lawsuit the firm filed last month against the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
READ MOREYale University Gender Discrimination
Western Digital Class Action
Fabio Silva v. Giorgio Armani Corp., Et. Al.
September 15, 2015, New York – It’s Fashion Week in New York – even in New York County Supreme Court, where Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight today filed suit against famed Italian designer Giorgio Armani.
READ MOREColumbia University Title IX Lawsuit
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a sexual harassment suit under federal and New York law against the Trustees of Columbia University and the institution’s noted history professor, William V. Harris, in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.
READ MOREEXL Service Holdings, Inc. Gender Discrimination and Retaliation Lawsuit
University of Arizona Gender Discrimination Collective Action
The Complaint, brought under the federal Equal Pay Act (EPA), alleges that ABOR dramatically underpaid Dr. MacCorquodale during her tenure as Honors College Dean relative to male deans at the university and to her male successors at the Honors College. Dean MacCorquodale had been employed by UA since 1978.
READ MORECushman & Wakefield Race Gender Discrimination Suit
(September 25, 2018) – Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight a leading national public interest law firm, today filed a $30 million race and gender discrimination lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against multibillion-dollar commercial real estate behemoth Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.
READ MORESanofi-Aventis Gender Discrimination Class Action
Chadbourne & Parke LLP Discrimination Class Action
April 20 Update: Below is a statement from David Sanford, chair of Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight regarding law firm Chadbourne & Parke’s vote to expel his client Kerrie Campbell from the partnership. Ms. Campbell was a litigation partner at Chadbourne in Washington, DC, on whose behalf Mr. Sanford filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Chadbourne last year.
READ MORESedgwick Discrimination Class Action
UM School of Medicine Race and Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
Proskauer Rose LLP Disability Discrimination Lawsuit
Dartmouth Title IX Class Action
On Jan. 29, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire granted preliminary approval of the class action settlement arising from the misconduct of former tenured professors Todd Heatherton, William Kelley, and Paul in Dartmouth’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Under the Settlement Agreement, Dartmouth has agreed to pay $14,000,000. In addition to this monetary payment, Dartmouth has agreed to a forward-looking commitment to undertake certain programmatic measures.
READ MOREXilinx, Inc. Lawsuit
Qualcomm Gender Discrimination Class Action
University of Arizona Gender Discrimination Class Action
After filing a gender discrimination action on behalf of female Deans at the University of Arizona in January, the national civil rights law firm Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight is now pursuing a second action for female science professors at the University. Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a gender discrimination class action and collective action lawsuit today against the Arizona Board of Regents in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on behalf of Katrina Miranda, Ph.D., a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and other similarly situated female science professors at the state’s flagship research institution.
READ MOREDaiichi Sankyo Gender Discrimination Class Action
On February 11, 2013, six current and former female pharmaceutical sales professionals filed a class and collective action gender discrimination lawsuit against Daiichi Sankyo in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging discrimination in pay, promotion and other terms and conditions of employment based on gender, pregnancy and family responsibilities.
READ MOREForest Laboratories Gender Discrimination Class Action – $4 Million Settlement
On June 29, 2018, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight secured final approval of a $4 million class settlement reached in April 2017 for female sales force members of Forest Laboratories and Forest Pharmaceuticals (“Forest”). Judge Ronnie Abrams’ order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was the capstone of six years of litigation in Barrett et al v. Forest Laboratories, Inc., et al. on behalf of the named plaintiffs and a class of other female employees of the pharmaceutical giant who experienced systematic gender discrimination at the company.
READ MOREFairfield Resorts Gender Discrimination Sexual Harassment Class Action
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight represented a class of women in a sexual harassment and gender discrimination claims against Fairfield Resorts Incorporated, a major resort and timeshare company. The case was settled on behalf of all female employees at Fairfield’s Nashville, Tennessee facility in 2006, with more than $5 million in damages and significant modifications to Fairfield’s internal policies and procedures.
Beth Burns Wrongful Termination Suit
Beth Burns, the winningest women’s basketball coach in San Diego State University history (SDSU) inked a final settlement agreement with the University, putting a period on a long and contentious litigation
READ MORENovartis Pharmaceutical Gender Discrimination Class Action
In the largest gender discrimination case to ever go to trial, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight successfully represented a class of 5,600 female sales representatives of Novartis Pharmaceutical Company in their gender pay and promotion and pregnancy discrimination claims. A unanimous decision by a jury of nine found Novartis liable for gender discrimination in pay and promotion and pregnancy-related matters and awarded 12 former Novartis sales reps $3.36 million in compensatory damages and the class of 5,600 women an additional $250 million in punitive damages In addition, the verdict from the jury meant that the remaining 5,600 women in the class were also entitled to additional awards of backpay and to seek compensatory damage awards up to $300,000 each. The verdict and the resulting monetary awards was the largest ever in the U.S in an employment discrimination case.
READ MOREColumbia University Sexual Harassment Case
(March 23, 2016) New York, NY – Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a complaint Tuesday night in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Columbia University. The complaint alleges that the lip service Columbia pays to gender diversity doesn’t match the reality of how it treats the women who work there. The complaint provides extensive details regarding how the senior leadership of Columbia – including the Provost of the University and the Dean of Columbia Business School – allowed one of Columbia’s senior, tenured professors to sexually harass and obstruct the work of a female junior faculty member, plaintiff Enrichetta Ravina.
READ MOREKPMG Gender Discrimination Case
Boston Scientific Gender Discrimination Case
In March 2015, class representatives Denise Fretter and Maria Korsgaard filed a $50 million nationwide class and collective action against the Valencia, CA-based medical device manufacturer, Boston Scientific Neuromodulation Corporation (BSNC), in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The Plaintiffs allege systemic violations of the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act stemming from the company’s treatment of women who worked in its sales force hierarchy.
Garda Gender Discrimination Sexual Harassment Case
In February 2015, former Vice President of Business Process and Integration Nicole Watson filed a complaint alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment against Garda, a company that provides armored trucks throughout the United States and touts itself as being a “global leader in comprehensive security and risk management.” The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Charge of Discrimination Against Saint Augustine’s University
On December 19, 2023, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) on behalf of Dr. Christine Johnson McPhail, former president of Saint Augustine’s University, alleging discrimination and retaliation against the University and its Board of Trustees.
READ MOREHarvard University Lawsuit
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed a lawsuit on February 8, 2022, against Harvard University and the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Complaint alleges that Harvard violated Title IX and Massachusetts Civil Rights and Common laws by willfully ignoring a near-decade-long pattern of sexual harassment and retaliation by tenured Anthropology Professor John Comaroff against three female graduate students in Harvard’s Anthropology Department. The Complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on behalf of the three students, Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava.
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