Dive Brief:
- A federal jury held April 11 that Omni Hotels & Resorts did not discriminate on the basis of sex by paying a female former employee less than her male counterparts, a reversal in a case where two prior jury verdicts awarded millions of dollars in damages to the employee.
- The plaintiff in Lindsley v. Omni Hotels Management Corp. first sued the company in 2017 alleging pay discrimination, exclusion from networking and promotion opportunities made available to similarly situated men, and sexual harassment. The plaintiff claimed Omni retaliated against her after she filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and ultimately fired her.
- The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas initially granted summary judgment to Omni, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and the case headed to a jury trial. A split 2023 jury verdict partly sided with the plaintiff. The 5th Circuit vacated the verdict, holding that it was “inconsistent,” and ordered a new trial. After the retrial, the jury concluded that Omni did not discriminate against the plaintiff.
Dive Insight:
The sequence of events in Lindsley played out over nearly eight years of litigation, including multiple appeals and a pair of jury verdicts that appeared contradictory.
The jury first held in 2023 that Omni violated neither Title VII of the Civil Rights Act nor the Equal Pay Act, but it nevertheless awarded the plaintiff $100,000 in damages for “past pain and suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish and lost enjoyment of life” as well as $25 million in punitive damages. It did not award any back pay to the plaintiff. The verdict drew confusion from parties to the suit, including the presiding judge, according to a transcript of proceedings. The judge blamed himself for unclear instructions and ordered the jury back for further deliberations under a revised set of jury instructions.
In its second verdict, the jury offered a split decision, stating that Omni had violated Title VII but not the Equal Pay Act. The jury said that, on the latter point, Omni proved that the difference in pay between the plaintiff and her male comparators was the result of a factor other than sex. The jury again awarded the plaintiff the respective $100,000 and $25 million awards but no back pay.
Following the decision, both parties moved to enter judgment on the verdict, with Omni also filing for renewed judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. The district court sided with the plaintiff, granting judgment on the jury’s verdict on the basis that the court properly directed the jury to revisit its first verdict after finding that it was inconsistent. The court upheld the second verdict but reduced the damages amount to Title VII’s statutory cap of $300,000, holding that a finding of back pay damages is not necessary to show liability under Title VII.
“As an initial matter, while the jury’s verdict is admittedly odd, this isn’t the first time a jury in this Circuit has found Title VII liability without a finding of backpay — it’s happened at least twice before,” the district court said. “Here, the jury said yes to liability, and there is evidentiary support for that finding on the Court’s review of the record.”
The 5th Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment, holding that the lower court erred in handling the second jury verdict form by not including a question about Omni’s affirmative defense to the plaintiff’s Title VII claims just as it had done with her Equal Pay Act claims. “So, at a minimum, the jury was confused as to whether their finding on the ‘factor other than sex’ affirmative defense with respect to the EPA affected their determination of the Title VII claim,” the 5th Circuit said.