Contesting Workplace Discrimination in Court - American Bar ...

Part 7 | ConclusionOnly through the systematic sampling of case filings, such as that employed in this study, is it possible to understand how employmentcivil rights litigation operates. Our findings rebut many misconceptions about discrimination litigation. Most fundamental,we find that EDL overwhelmingly consists of cases brought by individual plaintiffs (not class actions, multiple plaintiff cases, orlawsuits by the EEOC or public interest organizations). These individuals overwhelmingly complain of disparate treatment, ratherthan complain about employer policies as would be the subject of disparate impact cases. A significant percentage of cases arebrought by plaintiffs who do not have the benefit of counsel, and these plaintiffs have their cases dismissed forty percent of thetime. Those claims that are brought by a class, multiple plaintiffs, or the EEOC enjoy much greater chance of success. The mostcommon outcome of a lawsuit is settlement. A significant percentage of plaintiffs lose through a defendant’s motion for summaryjudgment. Very few cases proceed to trial. Plaintiffs prevail in less than one-third of trials.Despite some variation across types of legal claims; the time period in which a case was brought; the federal district in which acase was brought; and the race, gender, age, and disability status of plaintiffs, these patterns are remarkably similar across cases.-47-