In the largest gender discrimination case to ever go to trial, Sanford Heisler Sharp successfully represented a class of 5,600 female sales representatives of Novartis Pharmaceutical Company in their gender pay and promotion and pregnancy discrimination claims. A unanimous decision by a jury of nine found Novartis liable for gender discrimination in pay and promotion and pregnancy-related matters and awarded 12 former Novartis sales reps $3.36 million in compensatory damages and the class of 5,600 women an additional $250 million in punitive damages In addition, the verdict from the jury meant that the remaining 5,600 women in the class were also entitled to additional awards of backpay and to seek compensatory damage awards up to $300,000 each. The verdict and the resulting monetary awards was the largest ever in the U.S in an employment discrimination case.

According to Plaintiff Kerrie Campbell, a nationally recognized trial lawyer and partner in Chadbourne’s Washington, DC office, female partners at the firm are excluded from positions of decision-making authority and receive less pay and bonuses even when they out-perform their male counterparts. There is only a one-tier partnership, with every partner characterized as an equity partner.

Sanford Heisler Sharp filed a $50 million nationwide class action complaint alleging that Connecticut-based Starion Energy perpetrates an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that has deceived and defrauded thousands of energy consumers out of millions of dollars. The suit is filed the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit seeks unpaid overtime wages for Claim Specialists who worked on long term disability insurance claims (“LTD Claim Specialists”) for MetLife and two of its subsidiaries, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and MetLife Insurance Company USA.

The class action suit is brought by Maureen Koetz, a resident of the neighborhood’s Gateway Plaza, a development with more than 1,700 rental units in the heart of lower Manhattan. Ms. Koetz, a former vice-president of the Gateway Tenants’ Association, describes how temperatures inside the complex regularly dropped to below 55 degrees this winter as well as past winters.

In 2015, Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP filed a $40 million lawsuit against Zara USA, Inc., the flagship brand for the largest fashion retailer in the world, Inditex Group. The lawsuit alleges that Zara discriminated against and then fired its in-house counsel, Ian Jack Miller, because he is Jewish, American, and gay. The case seeks damages for creating a hostile work environment, pay discrimination, and unlawful and retaliatory termination based on Mr. Miller’s nationality, religion, and sexual orientation.

Sanford Heisler Sharp filed a class action complaint in U.S. District Court in New Jersey against Energy Plus Holdings LLC and Energy Plus Natural Gas LP (Energy Plus) for perpetrating an illegal bait-and-switch scheme that has deceived and defrauded thousands of New Jersey consumers of millions of dollars.

According to his complaint, during his tenure at Giorgio Armani Corporation, the company’s Chief Financial Officer informed General Counsel Fabio Silva he did not trust Mexicans, and thereafter subjected Mr. Silva to increased scrutiny and discriminatory treatment. When General Counsel Silva reported this treatment to Chief Operations Officer, Giorgio Fornari, and Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Lucinda Rosso, General Counsel Silva was berated for complaining. General Counsel Silva was then denied a raise for reporting the discrimination.

In 2012, Sanford Heisler Sharp reached a $99 million settlement with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (”Novartis”) to resolve a nationwide class and collective action brought on behalf of thousands of Novartis sales representatives. The settlement ranks among the largest wage and hour settlements.

Sanford Heisler Sharp represented a class of approximately 6,000 female sales employees in pay and promotion and gender discrimination claims against the pharmaceutical corporation, Sanofi Aventis U.S. The settlement produced more than $15 million in monetary benefits plus the $13.4 million reverberating effect of a $2 million pay equity adjustment over a five-year period.

Recapitulation: When last we left our narrator, he was engulfed in a line of rowdy males slowly (but not softly) creeping toward the men’s restroom at the Nassau Coliseum during a Ranger-Islander Hockey game. Our hero has spent 35 minutes in queue mode and, at last! The urinals are in sight. But then, a “hulking […]

It’s not every day of the year that a full-blown epiphany smacks you squarely between the eyes and eradicates your fundamental attitudes about life and meaning. Epiphanies, after all, are rare moments of enlightenment and recognition, the polar opposites of the commonplace and customary. But sometimes, despite their extraordinary nature, epiphanies can erupt under the […]

For one frozen instant, many of us on our gleaming blue jewel of a planet stood transfixed: enraptured and awestruck by a scrawny piece of machinery hurtling millions of miles from terra firma. It was the little engine that could, only this time for real. On Monday morning, November 12, 2014, the European Space Agency’s […]

PART ONE Dear reader, I feel your pain. I hear your stupefied sputterings, your astonished mutterings, and most of all, your overwrought, tertullianesque declamations: “Tolstoy and Sinatra! What has Tolstoy to do with Sinatra?!” And what connection does any of this bear to women in the workplace, a central theme of “Shattering the Ceiling”? “Here” […]

We start this post with the story of a solitary figure, someone who – like the lone protester facing the tanks of Tiananmen – decides to fight mountainous odds: in this case, centuries of gender bias against women. The year is 1875; the venue: Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin. Our protagonist-heroine is “Miss […]

Did you know that a worker can make wages below the federal poverty line (currently $23,850 for a family of four), work long hours performing mostly manual labor, and still not necessarily qualify for overtime pay?  Strange but true. The federal wage and hour law (the Fair Labor Standards Act, or “FLSA”) celebrated its 75th anniversary […]

I’m a well-weathered veteran of the lawsuit wars, with nearly 35 years of experience under my fluctuating beltline. For most of my professional life, I’ve played David to Goliath. My clients are employees victimized by some of this country’s largest corporations. On behalf of these clients, and with some measure of success, I’ve sued corporate […]