Court Certifies Title VII Discrimination Case Based On Discretionary Decision-Making

In Rollins v. Traylor Brothers, Case No. 14-CV-1414 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 21, 2016),  Judge John Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington certified the claims of a class of workers alleging claims of discrimination under both disparate impact and disparate treatment liability theories. Id. at 6-12, 18. The Court also approved plaintiffs' request to proceed through a two-stage trial process, whereby if plaintiffs established a discriminatory policy or disparate impact during stage one, "each class member would be awarded a rebuttable inference that all class members were victims of defendants' allegedly discriminatory practices and/or suffered a disparate impact" in stage two. Id. at 16.