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Case Details for "Lufkin Industries Inc. "
Lufkin Industries Inc. must pay workers $3.1 million for racial discrimination
Lufkin Industries Inc. must pay black workers more than $3 million in back pay as damages in a class action lawsuit charging racial discrimination, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Ron Clark said Lufkin Industries Inc. must pay the workers $3.1 million as well as 5 percent interest to compensate them for acts of discrimination dating to 1994.
A bench trial in 2005 found that the company unlawfully made initial assignment and promotion decisions that discriminated against black workers. The ruling was made by U.S. District Judge Howell Cobb, who died later that year.
"Lufkin Industries has been profiting for years from its policy of unlawful discrimination," wrote Clark, who succeeded Cobb on the bench in the Eastern District of Texas. "At the same time, as Judge Cobb found, Lufkin's CEO was indulged with a corporate jet and pilot and in 2002 a paycheck three times that of the president of the United States."
The class action suit, which lists 13 named plaintiffs, was filed in 1997. Clark's order, issued last week, followed a directive from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals asking that the district court craft a more specific remedial order.
Cobb's final judgment in 2005 noted that the company's managers and supervisors gave whites preferential treatment and that "the pattern of African American shortfalls in promotions is consistent across the years."
The judge also ordered the company to stop channeling black applicants to divisions where working conditions are poor.
Posted on:2009-06-25
Company: Lufkin Industries Inc.
Class: unknown
Scope: Nationwide
Type of Case: Discrimination
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