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Court Denies Effort by Goldman Sachs to Dismiss Class Claims
January 12, 2012
In the gender discrimination litigation against Goldman Sachs charging that the investment bank systematically discriminated against female professional employees, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Sand rejected Goldman's arguments that one of the named plaintiffs was barred from bringing class claims because she failed to assert class allegations in an earlier complaint before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC").
Goldman Sachs sought to strike the class allegations brought by H. Cristina Chen-Oster, a former vice president in Goldman's equities division and one of the named plaintiffs in the class action complaint, on the grounds that she solely raised individual claims in her administrative complaint before the EEOC.
Last September, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Francis IV recommended that Goldman's motion to strike Chen-Oster's class claims be denied, finding that she had properly raised allegations of class-wide discrimination and exhausted her administrative remedies before the EEOC.
On January 10, 2012, Judge Sand upheld the recommendation, finding: "[N]o case presented to this Court--nor, we add, identified by this Court after an exhaustive inquiry--supports Defendants' interpretation that a plaintiff must, as a threshold requirement to a later class action, allege facts in her EEOC charge about herself and about other co-workers." Read a copy of the Court's order.
Lieff Cabraser serves as Co-Lead Counsel for plaintiffs. The complaint alleges that Goldman Sachs has engaged in systemic and pervasive discrimination against its female professional employees in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New York City Human Rights Law. The complaint charges that, among other things, Goldman Sachs pays its female professionals less than similarly situated males, disproportionately promotes men over equally or more qualified women, and subjects women to a biased performance review system in favor of its male professionals.
Learn more about the lawsuit at http://www.goldmangendercase.com.