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Staffing buyer Sony to pay $85,000 in discrimination case

December 29, 2014

Sony Electronics Inc. will pay $85,000 under a consent decree entered in federal court to end a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit alleged Sony violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it brought about the termination of a temporary worker with a prosthetic leg because of her disability.

A staffing firm assigned Dorothy Shanks to work on a temporary job inspecting Sony televisions at a facility in Romeoville, Ill., according to the EEOC. On the employee’s second day on the job, a staffing firm employee approached and removed Shanks from the worksite, explaining there were concerns she would be bumped into or knocked down, the complaint alleged.

The EEOC filed suit against both staffing firm Staffmark and Sony. The case against Staffmark ended in a consent decree entered June 25, 2013, under which the firm paid $100,000 to the employee. The case had continued against Sony until now.

“We found that although the employee’s removal was executed by Staffmark employees, it was actually prompted by a request from Sony’s management which made Sony complicit in the discrimination,” said Julianne Bowman, the EEOC acting Chicago district director who managed the agency’s investigation.

The consent decree ends the EEOC’s lawsuit against Sony and provides an additional $85,000 in monetary relief to the victim. The decree also requires Sony to report all employee complaints of disability discrimination to the EEOC for the next two years and train certain of its managerial and supervisory employees on the laws pertaining to employment discrimination, including the ADA. The decree also specifically provides that Sony cannot require the employee to keep the facts underlying the case confidential, waive her rights to file charges of discrimination with a government agency, or refrain from applying for work with Sony or any of its clients.

“The ADA provides robust employee protections, even for short-term temporary workers hired through staffing agencies,” said John Hendrickson, the EEOC's regional attorney in Chicago. “Smart employers will learn from this case that they cannot insulate themselves from liability for discrimination by acting through employment and staffing agencies. That’s axiomatic under the civil rights laws we enforce — if you can't do it directly, you can't do it through someone else.”