Donnelley settles race bias lawsuit; Printer agrees to pay $15 million
/- Originally published in the Chicago Tribune on October 22, 2004
By James P. Miller, Tribune staff reporter.
R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. ended a protracted and bitter court fight Wednesday when it agreed to pay $15 million to settle race-discrimination claims linked to the commercial-printing giant's 1994 closure of a South Side plant.
The high-profile case, which included disturbing accusations that nooses and Ku Klux Klan costumes were used to intimidate workers, attracted national attention when the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in earlier this year to resolve a dispute over the statute of limitations for the federal Civil Rights Act.
Despite the complexity of the legal issues, the claims of the roughly 600 African-American employees were simple: Donnelley, they alleged, had systematically discriminated against black workers through its hiring practices, in the workplace, and even in the way it handled the shutdown of its historic Lakeside Press facility.
In settling the case known as Edith Jones vs. R.R. Donnelley, the Chicago printer admitted no wrongdoing. The company has maintained throughout the legal fight that the workers' claims are without merit.
Donnelley said in a statement that it is "very pleased" to put the litigation behind it and is "committed to providing a work environment in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect."
Lead plaintiff attorney H. Candace Gorman called Wednesday's settlement "a significant victory" for the former Lakeside workers. "We're pleased that after eight years of litigating this case R.R. Donnelley has agreed to provide compensation" to the black Lakeside workers, she said.
With Wednesday's settlement, Donnelley has paid a total of $36 million since early 2003 to settle race-discrimination claims born of the Lakeside shutdown.
The Jones case is the only unresolved element in what was once a wide-ranging collection of civil rights suits that current and former workers brought against Donnelley. The other cases were previously settled, or resolved through a trial.
When the suit was filed in 1996, the case drew headlines, and attracted demonstrations at Donnelley's Loop headquarters. Rev. Jesse Jackson criticized Donnelley's behavior while standing outside the main offices.
The dispute dates to 1994, when Sears, Roebuck and Co. dropped its famous "Big Book" consumer catalog. Donnelley, which printed the catalog at the Lakeside plant, decided to close the 1,000-employee site.
Following the closure, some older workers filed age-discrimination claims against Donnelley, saying the shutdown was designed to hurry older workers into retirement.
Black workers filed a separate suit, alleging that the Lakeside plant had been a racially hostile work environment, in which black workers were routinely given the least desirable jobs and management failed to intervene when white workers harassed black workers.
In one instance, a black worker said white workers threw his lunch in the garbage and then told him to eat from the trash can.
Another worker said a white supervisor told him that if the supervisor's daughter brought home a black man, the supervisor would kill them both.
The discrimination did not happen only in the workplace, workers say. Their suit alleged that after closing the plant Donnelley eventually managed to find jobs elsewhere for 31 percent of white workers but only 1 percent of black employees.
Many black employees also complained that the company had routinely hired them as "temporary help," employed them steadily until they had almost compiled the 24 consecutive months of unbroken employment needed to become permanent workers with benefits, and then released them and started the process over again.
"They would let me work steady, but when I got 23 months they'd lay me off," breaking her service and setting her back to square one, one such worker has recalled.
In time, the litigation was expanded to include thousands of black Donnelley workers around the nation.
The age-discrimination case went to trial in 2002, and the jury ruled in favor of Donnelley. Then, early in 2003, Donnelley paid a relatively modest $21 million to settle almost all of the race-discrimination claims before the case went to trial.
The Lakeside workers did not join in the settlement. Unlike the others, their claim hinged on a legal issue--the statute of limitations in civil rights cases.
Donnelley's lawyers argued that Lakeside workers had waited too long to file their federal civil rights claims, because Illinois law says plaintiffs must sue within two years.
The judge hearing the case ruled against Donnelley, and said the workers could pursue the case. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago reversed that finding and agreed with Donnelley that the two-year limit applied.
In May the Supreme Court settled the matter when it unanimously ruled that civil rights plaintiffs can wait as long as four years before suing.
