MoFo's Attempt To Play Hard Ball With Gender Discrimination Plaintiff Fails
The judge acted quickly on this motion.
Even if you haven’t been obsessing over the recent spate of gender discrimination lawsuits filed against Biglaw firms like I have, you’ve probably still heard about the $100 million gender discrimination case against Morrison & Foerster. At this point, seven plaintiffs have come forward alleging that when they got pregnant and took leave at the firm they were placed on the “mommy track” from which their careers at the firm couldn’t recover.
Last week, Above the Law reported on MoFo’s latest legal ploy — they filed a motion for sanctions against one of the plaintiffs, Jane Doe 4, and Sanford Heisler Sharp, the firm representing the plaintiffs alleging the claims brought by that plaintiff were “knowingly baseless.” Doe 4 was terminated by the firm while she was eight months pregnant, and, in order to take her planned leave and benefits, she signed a release of claims against the firm when she left. MoFo argued the fact that Doe 4 negotiated the terms of her exit from the firm should bar her claims, and be the basis of sanctions, while Sanford Heisler argued Doe 4, as the primary breadwinner for her family and planning on taking the leave the firm’s policy provides, was economically coerced into signing the agreement.
The move sure seemed like an… interesting one from a public relations standpoint, even if they were ultimately successful on the merits. Yesterday, the magistrate judge overseeing the case, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, dismissed the sanctions motion, finding the plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded Doe 4 signed the agreement under economic duress.
It was a pretty quick victory for plaintiffs, but as reported by Law.com, Judge Scott Corley warned them not to turn around and file their own motion for sanctions based on MoFo’s unsuccessful motion for sanctions:
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California, who was hearing arguments on a separate set of motions in the case Thursday, found that the Jane Doe plaintiff could sufficiently allege that she faced economic duress when signing the release about a month before her planned maternity leave. However, at the same time she denied Morrison & Foerster’s sanctions motion, Corley instructed lawyers at Sanford Heisler not to bring their own retaliatory motion against Morrison & Foerster.
“We’re just going to stop and move forward,” said Corley regarding the sanctions motions.
But the legal battle continues. As Judge Scott Corley noted at the hearing, the identities of the seven plaintiffs may well have to be revealed if the case goes forward.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
