Sikh wins fight against Tri-County Lexus dealership in NJ.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A Tri-County Lexus dealership in New Jersey has reached an out-of-court settlement with the Sikh Coalition and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over alleged hiring malpractices that occurred five years ago, when a Sikh man was denied a job at the dealership because of his beard.
Gurpreet S. Kherha, the plaintiff in the case, will receive restitution of $50,000 from the dealership. The terms of the settlement also require the dealership to enter into a two-year remedial program, which will include a significant revisions of its procedures regarding employee discrimination, providing on-site training in regards to religious discrimination and accommodation laws, and providing a copy of its revised policies to any applicant and employee who requests them. The EEOC will institute periodic check-ups to make sure the dealership is abiding by the terms of the settlement.
Kherha – a Sikh resident of Little Falls, NJ who wears a traditional turban and has a large, unshaven beard – applied for a job at the area Tri-County Lexus dealership in February of 2008. Although he was told by the hiring manager at the time that he was well-educated and well-qualified for the sales position he applied for, he was told that the dealership could not hire him because of their strict “no beard” policy.
Soon thereafter, Kherha took his case to the Sikh Coalition, who enlisted the services of Ravinder Singh Bhalla to help fight Kherha’s case. Bhalla – who works for the firm Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt & Fader, LLC – filed a discrimination claim along with the EEOC in November of 2008, and a lawsuit was filed in New Jersey State Court in February 2010.
The EEOC subsequently decided that Kherha was, in fact, discriminated against, and immediately began negotiating a settlement with the Lexus dealership, and filed its own lawsuit, separate from the one with the Sikh Coalition, in October 2010. The following February, the Sikh Coalition’s lawsuit was merged with the EEOC’s, bringing both state and federal charges against the dealership.
Pre-litigation talks began in 2011, and in April of 2012, the Lexus dealership filed a motion to dismiss the case altogether. In the following months, the plaintiff and defendant went back and forth arguing the merits of bringing the case to court. Finally, this past June, oral arguments were presented in court, and in July, a New Jersey judge declared that the case would come to trial.
Out-of-court negotiations then began, over the course of which the current settlement was reached and agreed upon. The Sikh Coalition is now hoping that the case’s outcome will set a precedent for future discrimination cases, regardless of the victim’s race.
The full legal document, which details the settlement, can be read here.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com