Landmark Dodge to Pay $275,000 in EEOC Sex Discrimination and Retaliation Lawsuit

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Landmark Dodge, Inc., and Landmark South, Inc. (Landmark Dodge), the owners of automobile dealerships in Independence, Missouri and formerly in Belton, Missouri, will pay $275,000 and furnish other relief to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit, the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC’s suit alleged Landmark Dodge had a policy of refusing to hire women for sales jobs and men for office jobs, and that the company retaliated against two human resources employees who opposed the practice.

According to the suit, Landmark Dodge’s owner told two new human resources employees that he believed women don’t make good salespeople and men don’t work well in the office. The two HR employees quickly discovered the company’s hiring managers were in fact refusing to hire women for sales positions and men for certain office positions.

“When any of us applies for a job, we want an equal opportunity to be hired based on merit,” said EEOC Trial Attorney Luke R. Hertenstein. “If you have the skill and experience to do a job, you should not be excluded from consideration because of your sex.”

When the HR employees opposed the practice and insisted on consideration of all qualified job applicants regardless of sex, Landmark Dodge retaliated against them by making their work environment increasingly hostile and forced them to quit. Company records showed that from the fall of 2017 through at least April 2019, Landmark Dodge hired no women for sales positions and no men for the office jobs. During the lawsuit, the EEOC identified more than a dozen women and men whom Landmark Dodge refused to hire because of their sex.

The company’s alleged conduct violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on sex, including the use of sex-based preferences in hiring decisions, as well as retaliation for opposing sex discrimination. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Landmark Dodge, Inc. and Landmark South, Inc., Case No. 4:22-cv-00614) in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

The five-year consent decree settling the suit and entered by the court prohibits Landmark Dodge from discriminating against persons because of sex and from retaliating against people who oppose discrimination in the future; requires the company to adopt procedures to ensure hiring managers do not consider the applicant’s sex when hiring; and ensures that all Landmark Dodge employees receive training on those procedures. The company will pay monetary compensation totaling $275,000 to six women denied sales jobs, eight men denied office jobs, and the two HR employees. In addition, for the decree’s duration, Landmark Dodge must provide quarterly reports to the EEOC regarding its hiring practices.

“This consent decree ensures that future job applicants at Landmark Dodge will not be shut out of employment opportunities because of their sex,” said EEOC St. Louis District Office Regional Attorney Andrea G. Baran.

EEOC St. Louis District Director David S. Davis said, “Denying someone a job because of their sex has been illegal under federal law for more than 60 years. Unfortunately, some companies continue to use outdated sex-based preferences to filter out otherwise qualified job applicants.”

For more information on sex discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination. For more information on retaliation, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/retaliation.

The EEOC’s St. Louis District Office is responsible for addressing discrimination charges and conducting agency litigation in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and a portion of southern Illinois.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division; the EEOC is responsible for investigating charges against state and local government employers before referring them to DOJ for potential litigation. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.