2010 has seen some big-time settlements and judgements in cases involving sexual harassment, gender bias and discrimination. In cases across the United States, judges and juries are sending a clear message that these kinds of behaviors in the workplace will not be tolerated. So it's no wonder many companies and organizations are choosing to pay out large settlements before things get ugly and reputations get destroyed. These settlements not only prevent the victims of sexual harassment from reliving the often traumatic experiences in a courtroom but they can help the accused businesses avoid a public relations nightmare. Two recent cases show that settling out of court in sexual harassment cases can be beneficial for all parties involved.

Earlier this month, an employee at Washington's Western State Hospital, who said she was sexually harassed while on the job, received a nearly $1 million settlement. The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and the Washington Federation of State Employees agreed to settle before the case went to trial. The DSHS said that the state will pay $795,000 while the union will pay $200,000. Neither establishment has admitted guilt or wrongdoing in the case, but has agreed upon the total settlement instead of going to trial.

In April, another big settlement in a sexual harassment case was awarded to two female sheriffs in New Jersey. Litigation in the case dragged on for nearly seven years after the two women filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in 2006; the lengthy paper trail led investigators back to March 2002, when the initial complaints were filed in Middlesex County. One day before the case was scheduled to go to trial, the lawyers for the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department decided to settle, paying out $1.59 million to the former sheriffs. Both women complained of a sexually charged and hostile work environment. They claim to have endured years of lewd comments, indecent propositions and lewd behavior from fellow officers and supervisors. Like the previous case, Middlesex has admitted to no wrongdoing despite agreeing to pay the $1.59 million settlement.

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis has been ordered by a New York federal court to pay $250 million in punitive damages to a group of 5,000 former and current women employees of the drug company. The award comes after Novartis lost a gender bias lawsuit, producing the second-largest verdict of 2010.

On Wednesday, a federal jury in Manhattan found Novartis liable for discrimination and ordered it to pay $3.3 million in damages to the 12 women plaintiffs. These women are part of the Novartis' 14,000 U.S. workers. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the company once was heralded as one of the top work environments for women by Working Woman Magazine.

One by one, women who worked at Novartis testified in court during the five week trial and told a very different story. One woman testified that her male manager suggested she have an abortion when she was pregnant. Other employees testified that they were scrutinized by the company managers while male employees were not. Another woman said she was not included in the "boy's club" type camaraderie that took place at Novartis where executives partied with doctors at strip clubs. Still another woman testified that she was denied access to the flexible hours of the job share program after she requested to work part-time to care for her newly-adopted daughter. Jurors listened to women like Holly Walters, who described in detail being passed over for promotions because they were women. Walters told jurors that she was fired by Novartis even though she had not received any formal complaints about her performance. She says she was let go by the company when she was seven months pregnant after taking a few weeks off of work upon a doctor's recommendation who was concerned about her health. After days in court, the jury was convinced: Novartis was guilty of discrimination.

Judge Colleen McMahon is expected to make a ruling next week on whether or not Novartis paid women employees less than men. If she decides that it has, the drug giant will be ordered to shell out even more money in compensatory damages. The company, which produces top-selling drugs like Lamisil, Theraflu and Ritalin, was ordered to pay $3.3 million to the twelve plaintiffs earlier this week. The $250 million will go to current and former employees of the company. Novartis also has been ordered by Judge McMahon to undergo thorough and on-going investigations to see if the company has changed its standards and practices in regard to women employees.

The hot-button issue of breast feeding breaks at work recently has been pushed into the national spotlight with new legislation and a high-profile lawsuit.

An obscure provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act championed by President Obama requires employers to provide reasonable unpaid breaks for nursing mothers to express milk for their newborns.  No time limit is set on the number of breaks; in companies with 50 or more employees, employers must provide a private space that locks that is not a restroom and not visible to the public. The breaks aren't required to be paid unless required by state law or perhaps by an employee's exempt status. The United States Department of Labor is expected to issue additional regulations to implement this new rule.  Nearly half the states already have in place rules requiring the accommodation of nursing mothers.

Although from an unlikely source, the protection for breast feeding mothers is long overdue.  A New York woman recently filed a lawsuit alleging that she was fired from her job for breast feeding.  Yardiris Rivera says after giving birth to her daughter Erin, she intended to breast feed as long as she could.  According to Rivera, her employers had other plans.  Rivera alleges her breast feeding created tension at her work place, Medical Imaging of Manhattan. When she returned from maternity leave, her bosses told Rivera to stop breast feeding at work. After she refused to stop, her bosses made it increasingly more difficult for her to pump breast milk while she was at work. Rivera says that she was made to pump milk in a dirty restroom stall that was tiny and unsanitary. As a final blow, Rivera was laid off in February. She contacted an attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union who filed a state and federal complaint against Medical Imaging of Manhattan. The company claims Rivera was part of a layoff that had nothing to do with her breast feeding.

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It was English poet, painter and thinker William Blake who once said, "It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." But it is Baltimore police detective William Blake (no relation) who has to put these words into action. He was awarded $225,000 by a jury last week after suffering disability discrimination doled out by his friends at the police department.

Detective Blake, 40, suffered a seizure in 1996 while on the job. A proud officer since 1987, Blake returned to his duties and has lived seizure-free since the incident in 1996. It was the Baltimore Police Department who had a hard time forgiving and forgetting Detective Blake's seizure, however. In 2006, a decade after the seizure took place, Blake was ordered to submit to neurological and fitness tests despite other evidence that the officer had been healthy. Col. Terrence B. Sheridan ordered that Blake be given an electroencephalogram to measure electrical activity in the brain along with other tests to determine if he was fit to serve as a police officer. The problem with the ordered fit-tests? They violated the Americans with Disabilities Act which penalizes discrimination against anyone with a disability.

Blake took his friends at police department to court.  According to the lawsuit, Sheridan's order for the tests came on the heels of a colleague who was forced into retirement by Sheridan because he too had suffered from "potential seizures." That officer, Phillip Crumbacker, challenged Sheridan's decision. Human resources officers also questioned the order for Blake's electroencephalogram as he had already been declared fit for duty.

A six-day trial and hours of testimony later, a federal jury found that Blake was indeed discriminated against. The detective, who still works for the police department, was awarded $225,000 in damages. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in January that it was conducting a full-scale investigation into whether Baltimore County officials violated the rights of other employees under the ADA.

Immigration and the rights of noncitizens continue to be a much-discussed issue on the campaign trail, in the media and in courtrooms. Taking a stand to protect immigrants from discrimination, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against John Jay College on Friday. In the first lawsuit of its kind filed by the department in many years, John Jay College of Criminal Justice is accused of creating a pattern and criteria of job discrimination against noncitizens who are authorized to work in the United States.

Allegedly, the college is said to have demanded further documentation, like a driver’s license and social security card, from prospective workers who already possessed the proper work eligibility requirements necessary under federal law. The school popped up on the department’s radar when a woman complained in 2008 that she was fired from her part-time job as a computer lab assistant at the college.  According to her complaint, the woman was fired from John Jay for not producing a green card as required by John Jay even though she had previously given them copies of her driver’s license and social security card. An employee of John Jay since 2004, the woman has asked to remain anonymous in fear of further damage to her professional career.

This prompted an investigation of the John Jay College, which is a subsidiary school of the City University of New York.

The lawsuit is seeking penalties of $1,100 for the woman and other individuals and undetermined measures to correct the current practice of discrimination. The college, the Justice Department claims, violated the provisions of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits employers from imposing different standards on noncitizens than on citizens.

John Jay College has said in a statement that it fully intends on settling the lawsuit while immediately implementing new training programs to prevent employee discrimination in the future.

Imagine working years for a company, dedicating your life to your profession, and then being repeatedly told by your supervisor that your age and experience were actually a disservice to that company. This is exactly what happened to a 7O-year-old woman in Hawaii.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Kmart Corp. will pay $120,000 to settle an alleged age discrimination case involving one of its pharmacists in Honolulu. The lawsuit, filed last year by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claimed that the woman was subjected to harassment, humiliation, and retaliation over a four-year period. According to the suit, a pharmacy manager at the Honolulu store repeatedly told a 70-year-old female pharmacist that she was "too old," "should just retire," and was "greedy" because she was still working.

In a notebook expressly used for pharmacy department communication, the manager allegedly wrote about the woman: "The pharmacy is no longer your forte," and, "You need to retire from pharmacy work now." The same manager scheduled her to work on Sundays even though it was common knowledge she attended church and regularly encouraged the woman to quit. But the woman continued to work, eventually complaining to a district manager, a general manager, and also a human resources manager. Sadly, she was offered no support or help from any of those she contacted while the abuse and discrimination continued to take place. The woman soon quit Kmart, filing a suit with the EEOC last June.

In addition to paying $120,000 in damages, Kmart has agreed to hire an EEOC trainer to review the company's current polices on anti discrimination, provide training on anti discrimination to its employees, and enforce mandatory disciplinary actions on management who violate the polices.

Expecting a child is usually a happy and exciting time for new mothers. For LuShonda Smith and Charity Brooks of Kansas City, however, the joys of pregnancy were soured when each was subjected to workplace discrimination that resulted in both women losing their jobs.

When Imagine Schools, Inc., a nationwide operator of charter schools, decided to close one of its Kansas City middle schools in favor of reopening a combination high school and middle school, Smith, an office manager, and Brooks, an administrative assistant, were both fired. Both women claim that their employment with Imagine Schools, Inc. was terminated not because of poor performance but because LuShonda Smith and Charity Brooks were both pregnant at the time.

This week, Imagine Schools agreed to pay $570,000 to settle a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of the two women by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The lawsuit, filed in September 2008 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, claimed that Imagine Schools was guilty of pregnancy discrimination when it chose not to rehire Smith and Brooks at the new school. Pregnancy discrimination is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The $570,000 will go toward back pay for the two women as well as emotional distress damages and all attorneys' fees. Imagine Schools, Inc. has also agreed to  a court approved decree that requires the national company to disseminate a policy on pregnancy discrimination, report all acts of discrimination to the EEOC, and prominently post an official notice that states employee rights as covered by federal anti discrimination laws.

The EEOC, while pleased with the outcome of this particular settlement, is quick to note that pregnancy discrimination has slowly and quietly been on the rise. According to a study done by the agency, pregnancy discrimination charges have increased from 4,160 in 2000 to a staggering 6,196 in 2009.

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A startling number of discrimination cases are popping up in temporary employment agencies across the country. The reason?  It is hard to say, but the general thought is that even though these agencies operate on a high-turnover basis and tracking cases of discrimination within them can be nearly impossible, some cases have come to light that point to a larger problem.

Just this week, Melville, a New York-based Olsten temporary agency, settled a lawsuit that started in their Lacrosse, Wisconsin, branch. The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged that Olsten Staffing Services blatantly denied Zachary Schaefer a temporary position at Main Street Ingredients, a local food manufacturer, because Schaefer is deaf. The EEOC claimed that the ability to hear was not a clear job requirement, thus making Schaefer a viable candidate for the temporary position. The agency has agreed to pay Schaefer $70,000 in damages and $5,000 in lost pay. The company will also offer their employees training on the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

It seems some cases where people of color, with disabilities, or of a certain age have been denied jobs by temporary agencies are starting to be better reported. Just the same, well-known companies and trusted businesses are also being taken to court for alleged discrimination lawsuits.

Billion-dollar Internet mega-market eBay is also being sued by a deaf person.  Melissa Earll of Nevada, Montana, claims that due to her disability she is unable to communicate vocally by telephone and therefore is unable to verify her identity with eBay. The federal lawsuit filed this past Tuesday targets eBay’s seller’s registration system that requires would-be sellers to identify themselves via telephone. The lawsuit says that the current system violates the California Disabled Person Act as it excludes deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons from equal opportunities. In addition to damages, the suit is seeking to reform eBay’s current registration system so that people with disabilities can participate as sellers like everyone else.

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For 33 years at the Equal Rights Division in Milwaukee, Johnny Kimble devoted his career to helping others facing discrimination. As an employee of the state of Wisconsin, Kimble fought for equality in the workplace for dozens of people. His efforts, however, did not save him from the same kind of discrimination he long fought against. Last month, a federal judge ruled that Kimble, now retired, had been denied raises and promotions because of his race. The judge charged the Department of Workplace Development and the former administrator of the Equal Rights Division with discrimination. Kimble is now awaiting a settlement for back wages in an amount to be determined by the state of Wisconsin.  

The judge reviewed the case as well as several documents that proved that J. Sheenan Donoghue denied Kimble personal employee reviews and never gave him a single bonus in 12 years, even though he had been part of the Division's management team for nearly 29 years. It was also shown that other employees with less experience who had been there a shorter time received bonuses while Kimble did not. Donoghue has maintained that the reason Kimble did not receive raises, bonuses or promotions was quite simply because she found that he did not perform his job well enough. This explanation did not hold water with the judge who determined Donoghue to be an uncredible witness whose personal feelings about an employee had clouded her opinions about  his performance. The judge also noted that Donoghue's claims of poor job performance were contradicted by other witness testimony and therefore could not be reliable. Instead, the judge found that Donoghue was, in fact, basing her bias on unfair and untrue stereotypes about African American workers and their ability to perform.  

Thanks to the judgement in his favor, Johnny Kimble can now be a beneficiary of the very system he helped support. Now retired, his pension is considerably less than it would have been had he recieved the raises and bonuses that he deserved. Yet he remains hopeful that through further litigation he will finally see compensation for the invaluable work he did for the state of Wisconsin.

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In Virginia, employee discrimination is not only the norm, it’s also the law — or lack thereof — in this case. Currently, the state of Virginia has no laws protecting state employees from discrimination in the workplace.  Although former Governors of Virginia issued executive orders guaranteeing freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation or disability, current Governor Bob McDonnell has not reissued this order. He claims that the orders are a matter for the state’s General Assembly, but employee rights watchers in Virginia speculate that the governor’s refusal has to do with the inclusion of sexual orientation.

For the fourth year in a row, the Virginia General Assembly has voted down the freedom from discrimination order despite polling that showed nearly all Virginians were in favor of protection from workplace discrimination for gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual employees. Clearly, McDonnell and Virginia’s other politicians have no idea that it is 2010 and that 30 other states protect their workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation. So rather than include sexual orientation in the order, all state employees could be subject to employee discrimination, potentially creating a hotbed of political and legal issues for the state. Gay leaders and human rights activists have picked up this story, and outraged editorials have appeared frequently since the beginning of February.

Employee discrimination on any basis is thought to be an issue that state governments should help prevent, not perpetuate. Recent discrimination lawsuits have hit companies allowing bigotry where it hurts, like the $500,000 sex discrimination and retaliation lawsuit slapped on Delta Sand and Gravel of Montrose, Colorado. Filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the lawsuit protected a harassed woman as well as her coworkers who wanted to serve as witnesses to her discrimination. Elsewhere, companies AIG and British Airways have been the subject of discrimination lawsuits as well.

So, as it stands right now, Virginia has opened the door for behavior that’s illegal nearly everywhere else.  Any government that does not protect its employees in the workplace certainly isn’t doing its job.