January 22, 2025
The plaintiff-side law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC snagged over $78 million last year in settlements for workers who’d faced discrimination on the job, including big payouts from both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, earning the firm a spot among the 2024 Law360 Employment Groups of the Year.
Cohen Milstein notched wins for classes of female employees at the two high-profile government agencies. They secured nearly $23 million for a class of FBI agent trainees who said they were tossed from its basic training program because of their sex; meanwhile a class of female U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who said they were moved to light duty when they became pregnant was awarded $45 million.
Cohen Milstein partner Christine Webber, a member of the team that represented the class of 34 female FBI trainees who reached the settlement with the agency in September, said she was deeply impressed by that group of clients. She noted the bravery it took those who added their real names to the litigation, because decision-makers high in the government would know they had joined the case.
“This is a group of named plaintiffs that’s just among the most badass group of women I have had the privilege to represent,” she said. “They’re a very, very impressive group.”
The women in the class passed every objective test required to become an FBI agent: physical fitness, academics and firearms assessments. But all were dismissed at the stage of the so-called “suitability evaluation,” a subjective assessment conducted prior to graduation.
The explanations the women were given were “really inconsistent with how men who engaged in similar behaviors were treated,” Webber said.
For example, a male trainee who shot the wrong target during a practice exercise would be pulled aside and coached. Women who made the same mistake would be told they didn’t “have what it takes,” Webber said.
When the case was filed in 2019, it caught the attention of members of Congress who pushed for a separate investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice inspector general. That report confirmed the women’s allegations, Webber said.
“Basically, women were about 25% of the trainees and 50% of those who were dismissed on these suitability notations,” she said.
The $22.6 million settlement works out to an average of $570,000 per class member, which Webber explained is a reflection of the missed career opportunity, including the FBI’s generous pension.
The settlement also allows the class members to be reinstated as long as they pass basic training, though Webber said it’s too soon to say how many will go that route.
“We are hoping that some of the class members … will become FBI agents as a result of the settlement, and think that they will be bringing both great talent as agents, but also a great perspective for how the FBI needs to treat women better and therefore improving the agency,” Webber said.
Meanwhile, over at DHS’ Customs and Border Protection, Cohen Milstein scored a $45 million deal in August in a class action brought on behalf of 1,000 officers and agriculture specialists. The workers said they were shunted to light duty when they became pregnant, in violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Their suit was filed as an administrative case at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016.
“A number of them were referred to as liabilities, that this pregnancy is a liability. And it’s had a significant impact on their career paths, on their leave, on some of their opportunities to earn overtime, and other things that have materially compromised their earnings as well as making them feel like pariahs,” said Cohen Milstein partner Joseph Sellers, who worked on both the CBP and FBI cases.