Michigan Home Health Firm Pays $41K Over Race-Based Assignments
A Michigan home health employer has agreed to pay $41,137 to end a federal discrimination suit. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the company steered visits by race to match what it believed clients wanted.
A client's preference, twice in four months
The agency counts this as the second settlement in four months over a company that allegedly went along with a client's discriminatory taste. The earlier one came in July. Staffing agency WorkSmart agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a suit that said it turned away women for laborer jobs because a client wanted only men. WorkSmart denied any wrongdoing.
A separate July case shows the preference can come from inside the workplace. Two female obstetricians at an Arkansas hospital, the agency alleged, blocked a male surgical technician from working deliveries, the agency said, because he was a man. He eventually quit, and a jury found for the agency. It awarded him $105,000. Employers can be liable for letting employees act on such preferences.
The nursing assistant's lost hours
The Mid-Michigan suit, filed in February, centers on a Black certified nursing assistant who helped patients bathe at home. She asked the HR director why a White colleague hired after her got more hours. According to the lawsuit, the answer was that patients in the area did not want Black employees.
The agency says the company then kept sending White assistants to that area, close to her own home. It gave her patients 90 miles away instead. The agency also says the company believed some clients were "old-time" and did not care for Black people.
She complained about race discrimination. Two days after she asked why several assignments had been taken from her, she was fired, the lawsuit alleged.
Terms of the decree
The case ends in a consent decree, a settlement with set obligations. This one runs five years and was announced Nov. 3. The nursing assistant receives $1,137 in lost wages and $40,000 in compensatory damages.
For that time the company may not assign home visits by race. It may not retaliate against staff who complain of race discrimination. Each year it must report where every assistant worked, and it must train all employees, the owner included, on race discrimination.
The suit rests on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which covers race discrimination and retaliation. Mid-Michigan did not respond to a request for comment.
Regional Attorney Kenneth Bird said when the suit was filed: "Customer preference is not a defense to race discrimination." At the settlement he said the agency commended the company for putting practices in place so that home assignments do not depend on race.
Source: HR Dive