Employment Law:  Federal District Court in Pittsburgh Allows Race and Age Discrimination Claim to Proceed

On January 16, 2007, Judge Ambrose of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania denied the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings in a case filed under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.  Lee v. Northwestern Human Services, 2007 WL 136960 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 16, 2007).  The Court rejected the defendant's contention that the plaintiff's Complaint failed to properly allege that the plaintiff had been constructively discharged or subject to an "adverse employment action."  In her Complaint, the plaintiff had alleged that she received odd and split working shifts rather than the steady turn that she had been promised, that she had been assigned unfavorable duties, and that she had been referred to as a "sixty year old black woman" in a derogatory context on multiple occasions.  Judge Ambrose held that these allegations, if proven at trial, would be sufficient to establish a constructive discharge and adverse employment action, noting that "an undesirable change in duties or schedule may constitute an adverse employment action for purposes of Title VII."  The standard applied by the Court in finding sufficient allegations of a constructive discharge was the familiar standard that a plaintiff must show working conditions "so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign."