IT services company Infosys has slammed a motion to certify a class of workers who have alleged that the company illegally prefers South Asian workers in hiring, promoting and firing, telling a Wisconsin federal court that the plaintiffs’ statistical evidence of discrimination is lacking.
Infosys urged that the Eastern District of Wisconsin not to certify three proposed classes of non-South Asian and Indian workers allegedly fired or denied jobs and promotions through the company’s discriminatory policies, according to Law360.
Indian American woman handcuffed, jailed for expired driving license in Georgia
The proposed class action lawsuit has been brought by four whites alleging that they suffered employment discrimination due to their non-South Asian national origin. The case was filed by a job applicant, former intern, former employee and former employee of a subsidiary.
The plaintiffs pleaded to the court to certify the three classes: a hiring class consisting of individuals who are not of South Asian or Indian national origin, through the date of class certification and a promotion class and a termination class consisting of non-Asian and non-Indian employees who were not promoted or were terminated during that period.
The plaintiff, Brenda Koehler, claimed that she fell victim to systematic national origin bias at Infosys when she was passed over for a position for which she was qualified, in favor of a Bangladeshi person. Kelly Parker, Layla Bolten and Gregory Handloser were added as plaintiffs to the suit in September 2013.
In a second amended complaint filed in September 2014 the plaintiffs said that Infosys’ workforce, roughly 90 percent made up of South Asians and make up only 1 to 2 percent of the U.S. population, is a result of the company’s intentional employment discrimination against individuals who are not South Asian, including in hiring, promotion, compensation and termination.
They claimed that Infosys has “gone to great lengths” to obtain the disproportionate workforce by engaging in visa fraud to bring South Asians, mostly Indians, to the U.S. to replace non-South Asians.
“Affirmative action documents that contain no relevant analysis do not liberate plaintiffs from the relevance and reliability demands of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,” Infosys said, in court.
Memorial ceremony of 2 India US journalists hosted by Indian Embassy
“Nor does a ‘supplemental’ report from [plaintiffs’ expert] Dr. [David] Neumark that variously repeats and acknowledges flaws in his original report provide the missing evidence of ‘commonality’ across the proposed 75,000-person class,” Infosys added.
Infosys cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1977 ruling in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, under which a plaintiff’s initial burden is to establish a prima facie case that a discrimination policy existed before the burden shifts to the employer to defeat the claim by showing that the proof is either inaccurate or insignificant, reported Law360.
Infosys told the court in September that it is entitled to summary judgment, saying the premise of the case, that an Indian company’s “adverse” treatment of four people who filed the complaint from four different locations could only be explained by a centralized practice of reverse discrimination, does not fit the evidence.
Infosys is represented by Ellen E. Boshkoff, Rozlyn M. Fulgoni-Britton, George A. Stohner, Gregory P. Abrams, Lindsey M. Hogan and Dulaney Lucetta Pope of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP.
By Premji
