Discrimination - Car Accident & Lawyer

March 5, 2023

Rancho Gordo faces discrimination lawsuit

A former worker who packaged shipments of beans at Rancho Gordo in Napa has sued the cult-favorite company, alleging she was discriminated against at work and fired for being pregnant.

The lawsuit, which Martha Martinez filed in July 2021 in Napa County Superior Court, accuses Rancho Gordo of discrimination based on sex, national origin and pregnancy; retaliation and wrongful termination. She is seeking financial damages for lost wages and benefits and emotional distress, as well as “punitive damages in an amount sufficient to punish and deter (Rancho Gordo’s) conduct, and to set an example for others,” the complaint states.

The case is set to go to trial in Napa on Tuesday. Rancho Gordo, a nationally renowned darling of the food world and a company that publicly positions itself as a supporter of workers’ rights, has denied and fought the claims in court for nearly two years.

Rancho Gordo, which owner Steve Sando started in Napa 20 years ago, is known for its hit bean club, which sends members a box of dried legumes several times a year. The popular club has a waiting list of more than 40,000 people.

Sando declined to comment on the suit. In legal documents, the company says that the employees involved in deciding to end Martinez’s employment were unaware she was pregnant and that she has failed to provide enough evidence for the alleged discrimination.

Rancho Gordo, a wildly popular bean company, is facing discrimination allegations from a former temporary worker.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Martinez began working at Rancho Gordo’s Napa warehouse during the holiday rush in November 2019. She had never heard of the wildly popular bean company before, she said in an interview with The Chronicle. A temporary staffing agency had placed her there as a shipping clerk, she said, assembling packages of heirloom beans to be shipped to thousands of customers across the country.

The job was good at first, Martinez said. But soon, her lawsuit alleges, co-workers and supervisors made offensive comments about her background. Martinez is Salvadoran.

The lawsuit states they made remarks such as, “Las Salvadoreans son bien calientes,” or “Salvadorans are very horny” and “Las Salvadoreans son como putas y les gusta quitarle los maridos a las otras,” which means, “Salvadorans they are like whores. They like to take husbands away from others.” Her supervisor “participated in these offensive remarks and also observed co-workers engaging in derogatory, harassing treatment” of Martinez, the lawsuit alleges.

Martinez said she tried to ignore the comments and did not report the alleged behavior to anyone at Rancho Gordo at the time. She feels badly, she said, that she didn’t speak up.

“I feel emotional. It’s affected me a lot,” she said in Spanish. “It’s affecting me right now.”

Martha Martinez has filed a discrimination lawsuit against popular bean company Rancho Gordo.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

Rancho Gordo says in court documents that these “negative” comments were limited to a single occasion when Martinez was first hired, and that they were not directed at Martinez personally. Martinez testified that they occurred on one day, but that on other occasions co-workers made comments about her body and how she dressed, though it’s unclear whether that was related to her background.

Because she didn’t report them to management at the time, the company wasn’t put on notice to respond, Rancho Gordo’s attorney, Shane Anderies of San Francisco firm Anderies & Gomes, has argued in legal filings.

Then, in February 2020, her lawsuit says, Martinez informed Rancho Gordo, “including but not limited to” one of her supervisors, that she was pregnant. Rancho Gordo contends that she told only co-workers and assumed that other managers heard indirectly that she was pregnant.

About two days later, Martinez told her supervisor that she couldn’t come to work that day due to a family emergency, according to the lawsuit. Her supervisor told her that “Rancho Gordo would not need her anymore,” the lawsuit states, “thereby terminating her assignment.”

A few days later, Martinez texted warehouse manager Mayra Barajas, asking why she had been fired and stating she believed she had been wrongfully terminated due to her pregnancy. According to text messages included in court documents, Barajas responded that she “did not know you were pregnant congratulations!” She then told Martinez the shipping department was “super busy” and that she had been absent too frequently, text messages show.

“When we no longer need someone, we just let that person go,” Barajas wrote in Spanish in a February 2020 message to Martinez, explaining Rancho Gordo’s use of temporary work agencies. The company said in legal documents that it had no set practice for hiring or firing temporary workers, and made quick, “ad hoc” decisions based on daily shipping and sales numbers.

Martinez’s attorney, Elizabeth Lyons of San Francisco firm Liberation Law Group, plans to argue in court that this was a “false, pretextual reason masking a discriminatory motive,” according to legal filings. Martinez left early or missed shifts a few times but was not frequently absent, and had no prior documented performance issues, according to Lyons.

Martha Martinez looks at photos of her son. She alleges Rancho Gordo fired her after learning she was pregnant.

Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle

Rancho Gordo says that the supervisors who decided to fire Martinez, including the director of operations and the warehouse manager, didn’t know she was pregnant. The company ended all temporary work assignments in February 2020 due to the onset of the pandemic and a decrease in sales, according to legal documents.

Alkar Human Resources, the temp agency, ended Martinez’s work assignment at Rancho Gordo, and she never received work there again, the lawsuit states. Her attorneys argue this was retaliation for reporting that she was pregnant and then complaining that she had been fired because of her pregnancy. Alkar quickly offered Martinez another temporary job at a St. Helena winery, but she didn’t take it.

Rancho Gordo and Alkar Human Resources were joint employers, the lawsuit states. Martinez’s original complaint also included Alkar as a defendant, but the company has since settled the claims in a confidential agreement. (The initial lawsuit also included wage theft claims that have since been dismissed.)

Court documents shed light on what became a contentious legal battle between Rancho Gordo and the former worker. Lyons at one point accused Rancho Gordo of destroying evidence — deleting text messages related to the case, which the company said happened “in the regular course of business.” A judge found Rancho Gordo’s response “evasive” and “unpersuasive,” and issued a $2,660 sanction against the company in February, according to legal documents.

Martinez said she felt compelled to take legal action on behalf of other female, Latino workers who face workplace discrimination.

Reach Elena Kadvany: [email protected] Twitter: @ekadvany

December 30, 2022

Ex-Apple Lawyer Says in Lawsuit She Faced ‘Death Threats,’ Discrimination

A previous attorney at Apple sued the tech business proclaiming she suffered harassment and discrimination.
She stated the enterprise failed to shield her from a male colleague who she alleged sent her loss of life threats.
In its place, she was demoted right after switching to part-time remote get the job done and inevitably fired, she reported.

A previous law firm at Apple is accusing the tech huge of carrying out minor to guard her from a male colleague who she claims despatched her dying threats, which includes a video clip of him with a “Glock to his head.”

The law firm, Jayna Richardson Whitt, alleged that Apple rather demoted her following she took on a part-time role, and at some point fired her immediately after she’d continuously complained about domestic abuse by the colleague, though independently also raising considerations about being normally sidelined at get the job done, according to her lawsuit filed this thirty day period in California condition courtroom.

Whitt alleged that the male colleague, whom she failed to identify in the fit but mentioned she’d experienced a “particular romantic relationship” with, experienced inflicted “severe domestic abuse” on her, and most likely hacked her Apple iphone, in accordance to the fit.

When she reported the colleague to Apple, the business executed an interior investigation in 2021, but concluded it months afterwards with no presenting her any recourse, she reported in her criticism.

“Defendants left plaintiff defenseless, battling in desperation to check out to secure her gadgets, accounts, Wi-Fi, and her family’s actual physical security, devoid of any assistance from any person in Global Stability, even just after her supervisor explained to her that she was ‘escalating’ to attempt yet again to get the organization to assist her,” Whitt’s complaint reported.

A agent for Apple did not straight away reply to a request for comment in advance of publication.

Apple experienced published her up for allegedly “interfering” with its inside investigation into her criticism, and mentioned that she hadn’t conducted herself “in a professional and function correct fashion” in bringing up the issues, Whitt wrote in her match.

Whitt experienced held the role of director of IP transactions prior to later on currently being demoted to principal counsel, after about a year of doing the job portion-time and remotely, according to her grievance. She also stated that using clinical go away due to personal worries, like a divorce, experienced damage her in performance testimonials upon returning.

She claimed she felt ever more iced out after returning from a depart in 2018, when she was advised her operate was “common” and commenced to get handed in excess of for promotions, according to her complaint.

She sought to area all those episodes in just the context of what she described as a broader society of discrimination at Apple, wherever she stated non-white and female employees ended up normally neglected for promotions, and shut out of crucial meetings.

As an case in point, she pointed to a reorganization of Apple’s in-home lawful team in 2018, which she claimed had been decided without the input or understanding of female and non-white employees, and argued that it had led to the promotions of white male friends.

She alleged that the reorganization decisions confirmed “discriminatory animus versus non-Caucasian and woman employees,” in accordance to her criticism.

Whitt also explained herself as a ripe concentrate on for office discrimination on a number of fronts — as an Asian lady and single guardian who encounters “significant nervousness,” and as an staff who has essential more time off to treatment for a father or mother with Parkinson’s condition, according to her complaint.

Whitt is searching for unspecified damages for her allegations which include “psychological distress” and “hurt to her career,” her grievance explained.

December 24, 2022

Justice Department Secures Settlement with Nevada Medical Practice to Resolve National Origin Discrimination Claim | OPA

The Justice Department announced right now that it has secured a settlement settlement with Walter J. Willoughby Jr., M.D., Ltd. (Willoughby Ltd.), a clinical observe found in Las Vegas, Nevada. The settlement resolves the department’s resolve that Willoughby Ltd. violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by terminating a longstanding staff primarily based on her Mexican-American countrywide origin.

“Firing an personnel since of her countrywide origin runs counter to our nation’s beliefs,” explained Assistant Legal professional Normal Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “All personnel have a proper to be taken care of fairly by their employers. The Civil Legal rights Division is fully commited to addressing illegal discrimination in all sorts of workplaces.”

The department’s investigation decided that Willoughby Ltd. unlawfully fired a significant-executing Mexican-American staff primarily based on her coworkers’ discriminatory bias. Especially, soon after subjecting the worker to months of derogatory opinions and jokes based on her Mexican heritage, the coworkers fabricated a wrong accusation towards the worker that played into national origin stereotypes to oust her from the place of work. In March 2020, the health care apply credited the coworkers’ accusations without the need of investigating them and agreed to terminate the worker on that foundation. The INA’s anti-discrimination provision prohibits companies with four to fourteen employees from terminating staff dependent on their countrywide origin. Businesses with fifteen or a lot more employees are prohibited from engaging in this sort of discrimination by Title VII of the Civil Legal rights Act of 1964.

Below the settlement, Willoughby Ltd. will pay a civil penalty to the United States and $42,500 to the impacted worker. Willoughby Ltd. also must teach its staff on the INA’s anti-discrimination specifications, revise its employment insurance policies, and be issue to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements.

The Civil Legal rights Division’s Immigrant and Personnel Legal rights Segment (IER) is liable for imposing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA. Amid other factors, the statute prohibits discrimination centered on citizenship position and nationwide origin in choosing, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee unfair documentary practices retaliation and intimidation.

Find out extra about IER’s perform and how to get help through this transient online video. Obtain far more details on how businesses can stay away from unlawful discrimination on IER’s web site. Candidates or staff members who imagine they were being discriminated from dependent on their citizenship, immigration status, or national origin in employing, firing, recruitment or throughout the employment eligibility verification procedure (Type I-9 and E-Verify) or subjected to retaliation, may perhaps file a demand. The community can also phone IER’s employee hotline at 1-800-255-7688 (1-800-237-2515, TTY for listening to impaired) contact IER’s employer hotline at 1-800-255-8155 (1-800-237-2515, TTY for hearing impaired) email [email protected] indicator up for a free webinar or stop by IER’s English and Spanish websites. Subscribe to GovDelivery to receive updates from IER.