Third-party administrator will allocate settlement amounts based on an objective formula to each qualifying class member
March 11, 2022 – Update – Last night, the Court granted final approval to the settlement in the Kaiser Race Discrimination Class Action.
In addition to the class relief, the Court approved the named plaintiff service awards of $60,000 to $75,000 per plaintiff, support for which derived in large part from individual plaintiff declarations which highlighted their unique case contributions, hours of effort, and the emotional labor demanded from African-American healthcare professionals litigating a race bias class case during a public health pandemic and our national reckoning on anti-Black racism.
Co-Lead Class Counsel Kelly Dermody of Lieff Cabraser applauded the extraordinary commitment of the Class Representatives as follows:
“As Black employees in healthcare, Plaintiffs lived at the intersection of an extraordinary amount of trauma while working on this case, which began before and continued through the global COVID-19 pandemic and during the national reckoning on racial equity. They nevertheless persevered to advance interventions that we believe will help the careers of all Black employees at Kaiser-related entities. They also undertook substantial unpaid emotional labor supporting each other and other Class members. I have never observed such selflessness in the face of such difficult circumstances.”
Earlier in the Case
On December 8, 2021, the Settlement Administrator mailed and emailed the court-approved Notice and Claim Form to Class Members.
A copy of the Notice may be found online here for review.
A copy of the Enhancement Claim Form may be found here.
For more information, please refer to the Settlement Administrator’s website at www.kaisersettlement.com.
On December 1, 2021, The Court preliminarily approved the class action settlement, and directed Notice to be sent to the Class. Notice will be sent on December 8, 2021. A copy of the order may be found online here for review.
Also on December 1st, the San Francisco Superior Court issued an order granting preliminary approval to a proposed $11.5 million settlement of a class action lawsuit, filed in April 2021, alleging race discrimination in pay and promotions on behalf of a Class of approximately 2,225 African American employees in two job families (Administrative Support and Consulting Services) at Kaiser Permanente entities in California.
Under the Settlement, Kaiser will pay $11.5 million and institute comprehensive workplace programs to benefit the plaintiff class. Kaiser has estimated that the implementation of the programmatic relief will entail at least $2 million in internal costs, and that Kaiser’s culture change training program, Belong@KP, will cost an additional $7 million over the three years of the Settlement monitoring period.
Next Steps: The third-party administrator will allocate settlement amounts based on an objective formula to each qualifying class member.
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