$100 Million Pattern-or-Practice Gender Discrimination Suit Doomed by Company's Arbitration Agreement

A federal district court in Massachusetts effectively gutted a prominent plaintiff’s class action firm’s attempt to avoid arbitration agreements and litigate on a class-wide basis in federal court in Boston. This ruling comes on the heels of a series of class and collective actions filed in federal courts against major U.S.-based and international employers by the Sanford Wittels & Heisler law firm.

In Karp v. CIGNA Healthcare, Inc., the plaintiff-employee was a senior contract manager at CIGNA who asserted discrimination claims in a proposed $100 million putative class action alleging systemic gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Karp’s efforts to represent a class of potentially thousands of current and former female employees were halted when, the district court effectively foreclosed her from proceeding on a class-wide basis either in federal court or in arbitration.