Recruiter told female applicant company only hired men as delivery drivers, feds say
A furniture company accused of screening out female applicants in Florida has agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the federal government.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Jan. 13 it had reached an agreement with Kane’s Furniture.
“Kane’s absolutely, categorically denies any hiring bias,” a spokesperson for the company told McClatchy News. ”The company decided to settle the case because litigation is very costly, and we always invite any qualified candidate to apply, pass our drug test and compete for any open position within our company. That is the way we operate and have always operated.”
The class lawsuit arose from the experience of one woman, who said she applied for an open delivery driver position with the company in 2021, according to the complaint filed in May in the Middle District of Florida.
The woman, a FedEx delivery driver, went to one of the company’s job fairs in the Tampa Bay area and met with a recruiter, who’s accused of telling her “she could not be hired because the Kane’s Furniture delivery driver position was only open to men,” the lawsuit says.
She said she could lift heavy objects, drive large trucks and otherwise met the qualifications, but she was turned down for that position, filings show. Kane’s Furniture says the company offered her a warehouse job in the parts department.
Federal officials said this practice continued, and for at least a year, the company didn’t hire women for delivery driver, delivery assistant or warehouse associate positions at its 18 locations.
In a response to the complaint, the company says it didn’t hire women for delivery jobs “solely based on their lack of qualifications and/or lack of interest in the position after learning about the working conditions and requirements of the jobs.”
The company countered that it did hire women for warehouse jobs.
Legal counsel also used the defense that Kane’s Furniture didn’t operate the company at the time the woman in question applied for a job, saying it acquired assets of the company after the fact and isn’t liable for its hiring decisions before the start of 2022.
After the parties failed to reach an agreement, EEOC officials filed the lawsuit.
As part of the consent decree, Kane’s agrees to pay the woman who applied for the driver position nearly $73,000 and put the remaining $1.4 million toward a settlement fund for other members of the class.
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 12:26 PM with the headline "Recruiter told female applicant company only hired men as delivery drivers, feds say."