Restaurant to pay $1 million for failing to hire men into food server positions
A restaurant chain that allegedly failed to hire men into food server positions for decades has settled a sex discrimination class action lawsuit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for $1,025,000 and far reaching injunctive relief. The restaurant is a California-based corporation operating restaurants in Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Corona del Mar, Calif.
The restaurant has been charged by the EEOC with maintaining a longstanding company-wide policy of hiring only women for server positions in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex-based discrimination. The EEOC’s involvement was initiated by a charge of discrimination filed in March 2003 by a male applicant in Las Vegas.
The EEOC filed suit on March 31, 2006, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California after investigating the charge of discrimination, finding merit, and first attempting to reach a voluntary settlement out of court. In investigating the case, the EEOC found that the restaurant's policy barring men from being hired as servers had existed since 1938, despite the enactment of Title VII a quarter century later. While the restaurant claimed the policy was based on tradition, the EEOC found the policy adversely affected a class of men on the basis of sex.
The restaurant has agreed to change its longstanding policies and practices, and to actively promote the hiring of men into server positions, as part of the consent decree resolving the case.
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