Supreme Court Unanimously Rules in Favor of CRST
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously on May 19 in favor of CRST Van Expedited in a lawsuit originally brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2007.
The high court’s decision reversed the verdict of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had vacated a lower court that awarded $4.7 million in attorney’s fees to CRST.
The case began in 2005 when new driver Monika Starke alleged she was sexually harassed by two male CRST trainers. Ultimately, the EEOC brought suit on behalf of more than 250 alleged victims. The District Court dismissed all the claims and noted that the EEOC had not adequately investigated or attempted to conciliate the allegations of 67. The 8th Circuit reversed the ruling on the claims of Starke and one other plaintiff but vacated the award of attorney’s fees to CRST.
Starke and the other plaintiff settled their claims, but the case moved to the Supreme Court on the question of the attorney’s fees.
“This Court is confident that the Court of Appeals, and, if necessary, the District Court, will resolve the case by taking any proper steps to expedite its resolution in a manner consistent with their own procedures and their responsibilities in other pending cases,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 7-0 opinion with which Justice Clarence Thomas separately concurred. “The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
EEOC spokeswoman Kimberly Smith-Brown told Transport Topics, “We are reviewing the decision and we look forward to presenting our arguments to the 8th Circuit.”
In the meantime, there are some happy people at CRST headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“The Supreme Court said that we were the prevailing party, that we’re entitled to attorney’s fees [and] that the EEOC had failed to fill its pre-suit obligations to investigate, evaluate and conciliate,” CRST International CEO Dave Rusch told Transport Topics. “They got the names of all the female drivers that worked for us for four or five years and sent a letter to them that [asked], ‘Have you ever felt uncomfortable in a CRST truck? Please submit your name and you may be entitled to a large sum of money. ’ … Half of these women couldn’t be found or didn’t make themselves available.”
Rusch said CRST goes “above and beyond” to make sure all of its drivers feel comfortable.
“There was no substantive allegation of any wrongdoing that we didn’t deal with,” Rusch said. “We have about 2,000 trucks [with two drivers each], so we have about 2,000 workplaces that aren’t supervised. If any driver feels uncomfortable, we split [the team] up and fly the one with the allegation to Cedar Rapids, investigate and take appropriate action where [needed]. What the EEOC did was wrong. It wasn’t the intent of Congress [of] Title VII … to have one complaint turn into a witch hunt.”
CRST ranks No. 25 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
