Tagged: heightened burden of production and persuasian

Disparate impact is “based upon the premise ‘that some employment practices, adopted without a deliberately discriminatory motive, may in operation be functionally equivalent to intentional discrimination,’ Watson, 487 U.S. at 987, because the result ‘fall[s] more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity.’” Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335-35 n. 15 (1977).”

Source: WME and Loeb & Loeb LLP’s Opp. to My Motion for Summary Judgment and Cross Motion to Dismiss. November 6, 2012 [ironically, the day Obama was elected to his second term.]

“[T]he defendant has failed to submit evidence in admissible form to raise a triable issue of fact. We have repeatedly held that one opposing a motion for summary judgment must produce evidentiary proof in admissible form sufficient to require a trial of material questions of fact on which he rests his claim or must demonstrate acceptable excuse for his failure to meet the requirement of tender in admissible form; mere conclusions, expressions of hope or unsubstantiated allegations or assertions are insufficient.”

Source:  Zuckerman v. City of New York, 9 N.Y.2d 557 (N.Y. 1980).

Since William Morris and Loeb & Loeb LLP pretended that the pyramid of evidence demonstrating William Morris’116 year pattern and continuing practice of discriminating against qualified African Americans was irrelevant to my claims of pre-hiring individual disparate treatment, insufficiently refuted statistical evidence showing that the company’s employment practices, policies and procedures created a glaring disparate impact against African Americans (reflected by the New York office’s “inexorable zero” in positions of Agent and Coordinator prior and during my employment) and refused to present evidence in admissible form that was exclusively in their possession (e.g. resumes of my similarly situated white/”Jewish”counterparts since they argued they were more qualified than me and I argued the reverse, my evaluations since they claimed I was the worst performing employee and I argued that many of those highly subjective evaluations were tainted with bias and did not reflect my actual work performance, etc.), then William Morris failed to meet their heightened burden of production and persuasion.

Based on the reasons mentioned above and more, the finder of fact should have either found William Morris’ arbitration agreements to be unenforceable as a matter of law and public policy,  summary judgment should have been granted in my favor on all claims, or the finder of fact should have allowed for discovery and an oral hearing to ensure due process before entering a “final”decision, esp. if the decision was made in favor of William Morris.

Since William Morris and Loeb & Loeb LLP did not want to comply with my good-faith discovery requests and opposed having an oral hearing, how could any impartial finder of fact rule in their favor under these circumstances?

“Washington cannot cite to a stack of studies on discrimination that have nothing to do with WME and rely exclusively on them in claiming that WME has been engaged in a 100-year-old conspiracy to maintain white/Jewish dominance of the entertainment industry. To accept Washington’’s argument would be to endorse his racial and ethnic stereotyping and to permit a claimant to evade summary judgment based simply upon a generalized and inaccurate view of the entertainment industry and the talent agency workplace. Washington has admitted that WME never treated him differently because of his race; and his claim of disparate treatment fails for that reason alone.” — Michael Zweig of Loeb & Loeb LLP, November 20, 2013

If William Morris were truly innocent of Michael P. Zweig, Christian Carbone and Loeb & Loeb LLP’s criminal and unethical conduct, I think they would have a pretty strong claim for malpractice….

It’s funny to note that this statement was made in direct response to my following statement, in which they quote me in their Final Position Statement [pg. 8]:

Mr. Washington is not alleging that William Morris discriminated against him due to his race, color and/or perceived national origin. Based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood in magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly and others, this is fact.

I said this in paragraph 172 of my COMPLAINT that was filed with the Southern District of New York on DECEMBER 21, 2010!! I knew then — “based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood….” that I uncovered between June and December 2010 — that my claims of pre and post-hiring individual disparate treatment due to my “race, color and/or perceived national origin” were a “fact.” I was not making an “alleg[ation]” against William Morris any longer (e.g. trying to discuss the issue with former COO Cara Stein and HR’s Carole Katz while employed, filing complaint with EEOC, etc.) and the additional evidence I’ve uncovered over the last three years since filing my complaint (e.g. “Exhibit 31” and the “on-going” conspiracy to conceal these “nigger” e-mails) further proves this is a fact — no matter what conclusion Gregory reaches on December 23, 2013.