Forest Laboratories Class Action

Case name: Barrett, et al. v. Forest Laboratories, Inc., et al.

Case type: Gender, Pay, Promotion, and Pregnancy Discrimination Class Action

Filed in: [U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York]

Docket: [Case No.: 1:12-cv-05224]

Case Summary

In July 2012, Sanford Heisler Sharp filed a gender and pregnancy discrimination class action lawsuit against Big Pharma’s Forest Laboratories (“Forest”) on behalf of a class of current and former female sales employees.

The Complaint alleged that Forest, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest Pharmaceuticals, engaged in systematic discriminatory treatment of its female employees through gender-based discrimination in pay, promotions, and work assignments; pregnancy discrimination; sexual harassment; and retaliation, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act (“EPA”), and the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”).

The Complaint sought compensatory, punitive, and injunctive relief.

In November 2012, Sanford Heisler Sharp filed an Amended Complaint adding six additional female Plaintiffs to the original four.

In September 2015, the District Court granted conditional certification to a collective of thousands of current and former female sales representatives who worked at Forest anywhere in the United States from June 17, 2009 to the present.

In June 2018, Sanford Heisler Sharp secured final approval of a $4 million settlement on behalf of a class that included all female sales force employed by Forest—as well as its affiliates, parents, predecessors, and successors—who worked in a legacy-Forest position as a sales representative, specialty representative, hospital representative, institutional representative or regional sales trainer in the U.S. for at least one day between February 6, 2010 and April 3, 2017.