Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

Jewelry retailer, EEOC continue claims around gender bias

Reprints

(Reuters) — Sterling Jewelers Inc., the largest U.S. jewelry retailer, must face a federal agency's claims that it failed to promote female employees and paid them less than men, a U.S. appeals court said on Wednesday.

The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims by Sterling, an Ohio-based unit of Signet Jewelers Ltd. that owns Kay Jewelers and Jared, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to conduct a nationwide investigation before filing a 2008 lawsuit.

The agency says Sterling promoted men even when they were less qualified than female coworkers and paid women less than male counterparts with similar jobs. But the company says the EEOC only looked into claims by a handful of female workers.

Reversing a ruling by a U.S. judge in Buffalo, New York, the 2nd Circuit Court said while the EEOC is required to conduct an investigation, courts do not have the authority to delve into details of those probes and decide whether they were sufficient.

"Extensive judicial review of this sort would expend scarce resources and would delay and divert EEOC enforcement actions from ... eliminating discrimination in the workplace," Circuit Judge John Walker wrote for the court.

The EEOC did not immediately have a comment on the decision. Sterling and its lawyer did not return requests for comment.

Wednesday's ruling cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that said courts also do not have the power to review the commission's efforts to settle cases out of court.

The case is Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Sterling Jewelers Inc, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals No. 14-1782.

Read Next

  • Smaller Wal-Mart gender bias class-action reinstated

    A federal appeals court has reinstated one of the cases filed by smaller groups of plaintiffs in the long-standing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gender discrimination lawsuit, overturning a lower court ruling that had dismissed the case.