Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs
This is a putative class action in which the plaintiffs alleged that their employer, Goldman Sachs, engaged in a pattern of gender discrimination against its female professional employees in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. A July 2011 order from the New York district court denied defendants’ motion for reconsideration of an April 2011 order refusing to compel individual arbitration of plaintiffs’ Title VII claims. While the agreement was unambiguously silent on the subject of class arbitration, the order stated that the plaintiffs would be unable to vindicate a federal right to be free from a “pattern or practice” of discrimination without a class action. Public Justice’s Paul Bland argued the case.
