Benefits February 13, 2009

J.C. Penney Agrees to $50K Settlement of Race Discrimination Claim

February 13, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. will pay $50,000 to settle a race discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced.
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According to the announcement, the EEOC alleged in a lawsuit that J.C. Penney discriminated against Reinell Singh, an African American who worked as a greeter at Penney’s Staten Island store at the Staten Island Mall. The lawsuit says Singh’s supervisor referred to her several times using racially offensive names and subsequently fired her for racial reasons.

In addition to the $50,000 in compensatory damages to be paid to Singh, the three-year consent decree includes injunctive relief enjoining J.C. Penney from race discrimination or retaliation and requiring the adoption of a non-discrimination policy and complaint procedures, anti-discrimination training, posting of a notice about the EEOC and the lawsuit, a memorandum setting forth the requirements of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to all store employees, monitoring, and reporting.

The settlement resolves the case EEOC v. J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

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