Enterprise leasing to pay $2.3 mil to settle bias suit

Jet, May 27, 2002

An arm of Enterprise Rent-A-Car will pay $2.3 million to settle a class-action racial-discrimination lawsuit filed by eight Black former or current employees.

Plaintiffs in the suit, filed in October in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, alleged that Enterprise Leasing Co. discriminated against minorities in hiring and promotion. Enterprise Leasing, which handles car sales, fleet services and car rental, is based in St. Louis. Its parent company, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which is based in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, was not named in the suit.

The settlement reached recently resolves all claims against Enterprise Leasing, which employs about 900 workers and operates in St. Louis, southeastern Missouri and southwestern Illinois. The company admitted no wrongdoing.

Of the $2.3 million settlement, $575,000 will be distributed to the eight plaintiffs. Black employees who worked at Enterprise Leasing between October 1995 and December 2001 will receive a share of $700,000, and Blacks who applied for jobs during that period will get a portion of $500,000. The company will also pay $550,000 in fees and costs to Weinhaus, Dobson, Goldberg & Moreland of St. Louis, the law firm that represented the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs contended that Black employees were denied promotions or transfers in favor of less-qualified or less-experienced White employees. In some cases, the jobs went to workers that the Black employees had trained, the suit said.

The workers also alleged that they were subjected to unwelcome and offensive racial remarks and said the company did nothing to prevent or to correct such actions after being told of the problems.

Enterprise Leasing said in a statement that it will "refine certain employment practices," such as job postings, development of job qualifications and career-counseling services, "in an effort to better ensure equal hiring and promotional opportunities for qualified African Americans."