Hyundai Defeats Black Employee’s Pattern-of-Promotion-Bias Suit

A Hyundai Motor Manufacturing of Alabama LLC group leader lacked evidence he was denied promotion due to a pattern of discrimination against Black applicants or bias against him individually, a federal judge ruled.

To prove “race discrimination based on pattern or practice of evidence” a worker needs proof of their employer’s repeated race-based favoritism, the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama said. According to Stacy Trimble, Hyundai had a “racialized pattern” of only hiring Black group leaders as assistant managers in the general assembly department at its Montgomery, Ala., plant, which is more focused on physical labor, ...