Four Seasons Licensed Home Care Agency Sued By EEOC For Race And National Origin Discrimination
By Godson Umejiego, Bureau Chief, The Americas
A Brooklyn-based company that provides its clients with home health aides, ACARE HHC Inc., doing business as Four Seasons Licensed Home Health Care Agency , violated federal law by removing aides from their work assignments due to their race and national origin to accommodate client preferences, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Four Seasons routinely would accede to racial preferences of patients in making home health aide assignments, including by removing Black and Hispanic home health aides based on clients’ race and national origin-based requests. Those aides would be transferred to a new assignment or, if no other assignment were available, lose their employment completely.
Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race and national origin.
The EEOC filed suit, (EEOC v. ACARE HHC d/b/a Four Seasons Licensed Home Health Care, 23-cv-5760), in the US District Court for Eastern District of New York, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through the agency’s conciliation process. The EEOC seeks compensatory damages and punitive damages for the affected employees, and injunctive relief to remedy and prevent future discrimination based on employees’ race and national origin.
“Making work assignment decisions based on an employee’s race or national origin is against the law, including when these decisions are grounded in preferences of the employer’s clients,” said regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District Office Jeffrey Burstein.
“It is long past the day when employers comply with the discriminatory requests of its clients or customers, to the detriment of its Black and Hispanic workers,” said Timothy Riera, acting director of the New York District Office.
The EEOC’s New York District Office is responsible for processing discrimination charges, administrative enforcement, and the conduct of agency litigation in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, northern New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The EEOC advances opportunity in the workplace by enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.
