Stephen M. Randels

Sole counsel - No. CIV 96-0282-E-BLW (D. ID. 1997)

After losing an eye while serving in Vietnam, a Union Pacific Railroad employee worked for 14 years without incident, driving crew vans in the company's railroad yard in Pocatello, Idaho. After a minor accident, the company terminated his employment, concluding that his monocular vision created excessive risk.

The court ruled that the company's action violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and ordered the employee's reinstatement and payment of $110,000 in lost earnings and benefits.

Co-counsel; appeal by the EEOC's appellate division - No. C93-11-ST (D. OR. 1994); affirmed, 115 F.3d 676 (9th Cir. 1997)

The defendant fired a 60-year-old employee from a job he had held for twenty-four years. After a six-day trial, a jury found the defendant had willfully terminated the employee because of his age and awarded $131,774 in back pay, an equal amount in liquidated damages, and $113,719 in front pay, for a total award of $377,267.

In a precedent-setting decision, the Ninth Circuit reversed the trial judge's post trial order, which had reduced the verdict to back pay alone, and affirmed the jury's ruling on the merits.

Lead counsel - No. C89-936C (W.D. WA 1992)

This action under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act challenged a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the defendants. The agreement merged a bargaining group of predominantly female grocery warehouse workers with a different group of entirely male workers when they were transferred to a new warehouse. Even though the two groups performed the same work, the agreement perpetuated a one-dollar-per-hour pay differential previously received by the male workers.

The defendants' argued that the difference in pay was justified because the new agreement terminated the male workers' seniority rights to bid into other job openings in the warehouse where they had previously worked. The court found that this explanation lost its legitimacy when the company unilaterally gave the male workers subsequent opportunities to transfer back to jobs and "bump" less-senior employees in their former warehouse. A class of fifty women received a damage award totaling $385,000.

Lead counsel before the District Court; appeal by the EEOC's appellate division __ F.Supp.__ (W.D. WA. 1988), 900 F.2d 168 (9th Cir. 1990)

This action resulted from the defendant's misuse of a provision in its collective bargaining agreement with Ironworkers' Local 86 to "name-request" specific union members for foremen positions. Once on the job, the defendant used the name-requested employees as journeymen ironworkers rather than foremen. This practice violated the collective bargaining agreement's provision requiring the defendant to accept dispatches from the union's "out-of-work" list for journeyman positions.

The EEOC claimed the company used this practice to hire only white members of the union and exclude black members. A consent decree awarded $125,000 in back pay to class members excluded by this practice and $186,000 in training and future employment opportunities for black apprentices and journeyman ironworkers. The EEOC appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's decision, granting defendant's motion to seal the consent decree.

Lead counsel - No. C84-410(V)JLW (W.D. WA, 1986)

The defendant administered an employer/union medical insurance plan that excluded coverage for the pregnancy-related medical expenses of a male union member's spouse although no similar restriction was placed on the expenses of the spouses of female members. The trial court ruled that the Trust was not an employer or an agent of an employer and therefore not subject to coverage under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. After the Commission appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit, the parties reached a settlement providing payment of the individual claim at issue and a change of policy to include coverage of pregnancy-related medical expenses of the spouses of male union members.

Co-counsel at trial; appeal by the EEOC's appellate division __F. Supp.__(W.D. WA. 1985); 885 F.2d 575 (9th Cir. 1989)

This class action challenged the defendant's practice of channeling women into low-paying, traditionally female operator and service representative positions at the time of hire and of excluding them from opportunities for promotion into higher-paying skilled craft and management positions.

After a month-long bench trial resulted in a judgment in favor of the defendant, the EEOC appealed. The Ninth Circuit issued a precedent-setting decision, reversing the trial court's decision and remanding the case for a new trial. The parties subsequently entered into a consent decree, requiring the defendant to pay $1,500,000 in monetary remedies and training opportunities for female employees.

Sole counsel - (unreported Washington State Court of Appeals, decision, Div. 1 Cause No. 7155, 1980); see also Seaton v. Department of Social and Health Services, (No. 130030, Snohomish County Superior Court, 1975)

These actions sought the enforcement of a statute that allowed the State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to waive overpayments of public assistance when they resulted from department error.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling in Thorn, which ordered the state to enforce the statute but did not require retroactive class relief for other recipients of overpayments. In the Seaton case, a trial court applied the doctrine of equitable estoppel to bar the state from recovering an overpayment. The overpayment resulted when a department representative advised a public assistance recipient that she could place her child in an unlicensed day care center. These two cases formed the basis of a statewide effort by community legal services programs to challenge the department's aggressive efforts to recover overpayments by disregarding its obligation under the statute to determine whether the overpayments resulted from agency error and should be waived.

Amicus curiae counsel on appeal/lead counsel in related cases - 498 F.2d 840 (9th Cir. 1974)

This class action challenged the exclusion of low-income students attending public school from some classes by requiring the payment of fees they could not afford. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's ruling that parents of students excluded from classes lacked standing to challenge the school district's policy. Two other class actions were filed against school districts in Ellensburg and Elma, WA, and resulted in negotiated settlements eliminating the fees.

Lead counsel - 83 Wn.2d 195, 517 P.2d 599 (1973)

The Washington Supreme Court ruled that a statute that disqualified pregnant women from receiving unemployment compensation for fifteen weeks prior to the claimants' due date through ten weeks after delivery was unconstitutional. The court's ruling found that the statute was based on an unsupported assumption that pregnant women as a group were not attached to the labor market during this period. It also determined that the statute discriminated against women by singling out pregnancy without giving comparable consideration to physical conditions unique to males.

The ruling resulted in an award of $2,668,706 to a class of 5442 women. Steve Randels was also lead counsel in a subsequent class action that resulted in the elimination a similar statute in the state of Kansas. Lysiak v. McGlothin (Cause No. 75-180-C5, D. Kan. 1975).

Sole counsel - 83 Wn.2d 145, 516 P.2d 1032 (1973)

The plaintiff applied for unemployment compensation claiming he was laid off from work. The Employment Security Department determined the plaintiff had been discharged for misconduct and was subject to a ten-week disqualification from receiving benefits. It also determined he had made a false statement in his application and should receive an additional disqualification of sixteen weeks.

The Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Employment Security Department's policy of applying these two periods of disqualification from benefits consecutively rather than concurrently violated the Employment Security Act.

Lead counsel - 81 Wn.2d 241, 501 P.2d 178 (1972)

In 1970, the state legislature extensively revised statutes governing Washington's unemployment compensation program with the intent of providing more generous benefits. The original effective date of the amendments was July 1, 1970, which coincided with the end of the benefit year for all recipients under the old law. However, in order to accelerate receipt of the more generous benefits, the legislature advanced the effective date of the amendments to April 5, 1970. In applying the new law, the Employment Security Department terminated all entitlements that existed under the old law and required all recipients to reapply for benefits. The department's decision resulted in the termination of benefits to 3,000 recipients who would have continued to receive them until July 1, 1970, under the old law.

The Washington Supreme Court ruled that the department's application of the amendments to extinguish existing entitlements to benefits was inconsistent with the overall purpose of the Employment Security Act and the legislature's intention in amending the act. It also ruled that the department had authority to provide relief consistent with the decision not only to the named plaintiffs but to all 3000 recipients who had lost benefits.

Co-counsel - 4 FEP 299, 4 CCH Employment Practices Decisions ¶7630 (W.D. WA 1971)

This class action challenged federal and state regulations adopted by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Health Education and Welfare and the Washington State Departments of Employment Security and Social and Health Services, which gave a priority to unemployed fathers in households receiving public assistance for enrollment in job training programs over unemployed mothers who received the same benefits.

Because of limited funding, these regulations effectively excluded women from training programs that provided welfare recipients with assistance in entering the labor market and becoming self-supporting. The court ruled that the regulations were unconstitutional, violated several sections of the Civil Rights Act including Title VII, and also violated other federal and state statutes.