McClain v. Lufkin Industries, Inc., Case No. 97-cv-0063 (E.D. Tex.) is a race discrimination class action brought by African American hourly and salaried employees of Lufkin Industries, Inc., an East Texas manufacturing plant.  Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian's co-counsel in the case is Timothy B. Garrigan of Stuckey, Garrigan & Castetter of Nacogdoches, Texas.  Plaintiffs alleged that Lufkin’s subjective employment practices had an unlawful disparate impact on African Americans in initial job assignments and promotions. 

In 2005, after a bench trial, the district court entered a judgment which, in addition to finding Lufkin liable for classwide discrimination, found that the class was entitled to backpay in the amount of $3.4 million, ordered Lufkin to cease its discriminatory practices and adopt practices to ensure that African Americans are not discriminated against in initial job assignments, training and promotions, and awarded plaintiffs' attorneys' fees, costs and expenses.  Plaintiffs appealed the limited injunctive remedies, the dismissal of plaintiffs' intentional discrimination claims, and reductions in attorneys' fees.  Lufkin cross-appealed.

On February 29, 2008, in a unanimous decision, a three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's finding that Lufkin's subjective decisionmaking had an unlawful disparate impact on promotions of Lufkin's African American hourly and salaried employees.  See 519 F.3d 264 (5th Cir. 2008).  The panel also reversed the district court's injunctive relief order agreeing with plaintiffs that it was not specific enough to address the discriminatory practices found by the district court.  The court also affirmed the district court's formula approach to backpay relief where, as the district court found, it would be impossible to identify which class members were entitled to specific promotions given the passage of time and the myriad decisions at issue.  The court, however reversed the district court's finding that named plaintiff Sylvester McClain's EEOC charge was sufficient to support plaintiffs' initial assignment claim.  It therefore remanded the backpay order to the district court to be recalculated in light of the elimination of the initial assignment claim.  Finally, the court of appeals remanded the district court's attorneys' fees award for further factual analysis and findings consistent with Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc.

On January 15, 2010 a U.S. District Court Judge in Beaumont, Texas entered a final Judgment for plaintiffs in McClain v. Lufkin Industries, our firm's longest-running - filed in 1997 - current class action.  The Judgment resulted from remand proceedings following a 2008 decision of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that affirmed most of the District Court's findings of discrimination after a several week long trial in 2004, and specifically its findings that Lufkin discriminated against African Americans in promotions to hourly and salaried positions by permitting managers to make promotion decisions using subjective and standardless criteria.  The Judgment grants extensive injunctive relief detailed in a 50 page Permanent Injunction that prohibits Lufkin from continuing to discriminate against African American workers in its Angelina County, Texas production facilities, requires Lufkin to implement objective and non-discretionary promotional procedures and many other specific measures of affirmative relief, appoints an Ombudsperson for complaints, and authorizes continuing monitoring to assure compliance.  The Judgment also awards $5.5 million in backpay and interest to the class of over 1,000 African American workers, plus attorneys' fees and costs.  We believe that this may be the first class action discrimination case that has been litigated to a successful judgment in the Fifth Circuit in over a decade.