Microsoft Can’t Escape Gender Discrimination Class Action

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A federal judge has denied Microsoft’s request to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging the tech giant discriminates against female workers, ruling that the plaintiffs brought plausible claims.

According to U.S. District Judge James L. Robart, the plaintiffs adequately established that Microsoft’s performance review system allows for predominantly male supervisors to make arbitrary differentiations between technical employees’ evaluations at the systematic disadvantage of women.

Female employees launched the gender bias class action lawsuit in September 2015, alleging Microsoft’s female workers received less pay and fewer promotions than their male counterparts due to Microsoft’s “stack ranking” employee evaluation process.

The plaintiffs claim use of this system unfairly affected female employees and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Washington State Law Against Discrimination.

Lead plaintiff Katherine Moussouris says she quit her job at Microsoft because the company continued to treat her unfairly and wouldn’t rectify the situation.

The class action lawsuit claims that Microsoft committed both intentional discrimination and disparate-impact discrimination under Title VII.

Microsoft disputed the claim that their ranking system placed female employees at a disadvantage, but Judge Robart upheld the claims in a recent ruling.

“The court agrees that the characteristics of the performance review system described in the second amended complaint ‘nudge’ plaintiffs’ claims — particularly the disputed element of causation — ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible,’” wrote the judge in his order.

“At a minimum, the parties have set forth multiple plausible causes of the alleged disparate impact on female technical employees at Microsoft,” the judge continued.

Microsoft did win its argument over the appropriate start for the three-year limitations period. The plaintiffs claimed that the limitations period was tolled when the class action lawsuit was filed.

Microsoft argued that the three-year limitations period stopped in May 2014, when one of the lead plaintiffs filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The judge agreed with Microsoft, pointing out “[t]he record contains no evidence that any would-be class members relied on [the lead plaintiff’s] EEOC charge,” the judge said. “Indeed, given that the would-be class members allegedly experienced discrimination between May 2011 and September 2012 but took no action to assert claims before May 2014, it is unreasonable to infer that they would have pursued claims on their own behalf but for [the plaintiff’s] EEOC charge.”

As a result, the proposed Class claims will stop at Sept. 16, 2012.

The plaintiffs seek to represent current and former female technical workers employed by Microsoft throughout the U.S.

The proposed Class is represented by Sharon M. Lee, Kelly M. Dermody, Anne B. Shaver, Michael Levin-Gesundheit, Rachel J. Geman and Yaman Salahi of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, Adam T. Klein, Ossai Miazad, Elizabeth V. Stork, Jahan C. Sagafi and Katrina L. Eiland of Outten & Golden LLP and Michael Subit of Frank Freed Subit & Thomas LLP.

The Microsoft Gender Discrimination Class Action Lawsuit is Katherine Moussouris, et al. v. Microsoft Corp., Case No. 2:15-cv-01483, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.