In the world of employment law, many business owners believe that shuttering a business or selling its assets provides a "clean slate" from pending litigation. However, a recent settlement involving Epiq Food Hall in Woodbridge, Virginia, serves as a stark warning to the contrary; it highlights how the EEOC utilizes the doctrine of successor liability to ensure justice follows the assets, regardless of the name on the door. The Case at a Glance The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced a $54,000 settlement against Epiq Food Hall Woodbridge, LLC. The suit alleged that the company’s owner subjected a Black general manager to a barrage of racial slurs and derogatory comments, including terms like “riff-raff” and “ghetto,” and the N-word. Finding no internal avenue for complaint—a common issue when the harasser is the owner—the manager was forced to resign. Why This Matters for Paralegals and Legal Professionals For those of us managin...
By Joel When I look at the "banking platform" today—that open area where personal bankers and managers sit—I don’t just see desks and computers; I see a battlefield of institutional history. In the 1970s and '80s, for many Black and Latino employees in New York, that platform was a space of restricted entry. I worked with colleagues who had been at their branches for 25 years who shared stories of a time when they were physically prohibited from stepping onto the platform in front of white customers. Even as those physical barriers fell, they were replaced by "paper ceilings" that kept veteran minority staff from the one thing they had earned: the title of Bank Officer. The "Preferred" Degree: A Credentialing Double Standard By the late 1980s, a new tactic emerged in job postings. The phrase "Bachelor’s Degree Preferred" began appearing for Officer roles. On the surface, it looked like a push for professional standards...