Texas: Dallas-Fort Worth Restaurant Pays for Sex Bias

By Business and Legal Reports, Inc.

Razzoo’s, a Cajun restaurant chain based in Dallas-Fort Worth, has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a claim of bias brought by male applicants and employees who were not considered for bartender positions. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued the chain on behalf of the claimants, charged Razzoo’s management with having set up and communicated a plan for an 80-20 ratio of women to men behind the bar.

If the case had gone to trial instead of being settled, male applicants and servers would have testified that managers told them Razzoo’s wanted mostly “girls” behind the bar and that men who worked as servers at the restaurants were generally denied promotion to bartender because of their gender. The few men who were promoted to bartender were allegedly not allowed to work lucrative “girls-only” bartending events.

Of the settlement funds, $775,000 will be divided among a class of male applicants, servers, and bartenders who were discriminated against. Another $225,000, at a minimum, will go toward either retaining the services of a human resources consultant or developing an in-house human resources department. The decree required that Razzoo’s would spend no less than $225,000 for these HR services.

Contributed by BLR, IncRead plain-English analysis on Sex Discrimination in Texas