Beyond employment, companies are prohibited from treating customers differently based on factors such as race. If a company is in this category, it faced allegations of discriminating against a protected category of the public and was fined or reached a settlement.
Sources
Violation Tracker contains more than 500 cases involving discriminatory practices outside the workplace dating back to 2000, with over $3 billion in penalties. More than one-third of the cases were brought by federal agencies, with the largest portion originating in the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Most of these cases involve financial institutions or landlords accused of discriminating against certain customers based on race, national origin or other protected categories. Some similar cases have been brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission.
Around the same number of cases came from state attorneys general, with some added from state regulatory agencies. Several states, such as Ohio, New York, Iowa, and California have civil or human rights commissions that enforce discriminatory practices not related to employment.
At the local level, The New York City Commission on Human Rights has taken on over 100 cases related to discrimination, often against real estate companies or housing providers.
Violation Tracker also contains 37 entries on discrimination class action lawsuits with total settlements and awards of nearly $1 billion.
Search Techniques
The best way to access discriminatory practices cases in Violation Tracker is through the Advanced Search page. Here you can combine a company name and/or other variables with the discriminatory practices (non-employment) choice in the Offense Type dropdown. You can use the Full Text search box to search words or phrases related to discrimination mentioned in the description field of the individual entries. Use the Level of Government dropdown to limit your search to federal, state or local cases.
On the Summaries page you can retrieve an overview of all consumer protection cases (of which discriminatory practices cases are a subset) from the Offense Group dropdown. You can also find such overviews for the Department of Housing and Urban Development or other agencies from the Federal Agency Summaries or State/Local Agency Summaries dropdowns. The parent company summaries include breakdowns by offense categories, including discriminatory practices.
To locate non-employment discrimination class action or multi-district lawsuits, go to the Advanced Search and choose private litigation from the Action Type dropdown and the discriminatory practices (non-employment) choice in the Offense Type dropdown. Private litigation entries include full case citations. Violation Tracker subscribers also have access to key court documents such as settlement agreements.
