Rent-A-Center disputes discrimination charges
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 9, 2001
PLANE, Texas — Rent-A-Center is charging that attorneys representing current and former employees in a class-action discrimination lawsuit have "distorted the company's record and misrepresented the facts."
The attorneys issued a press release late last month saying that a federal court in St. Louis had ordered the 2,278-store rent-to-own leader to pay attorneys' fees, costs and expenses due to a delay caused by Rent-A-Center's failure "to timely comply with a court order … to turn over records of sex discrimination charges and names of employees and other documents regarding the employment practices."
The court also ordered the company to resolve the issue of a missing list of "promotable employees" and to instruct employees that "documents are not to be destroyed," according to the release.
The moves are part of a Wilfong vs. Rent-A-Center lawsuit filed last summer by 19 plaintiffs alleging, among other things, that the company was engaged in class-wide gender discrimination following its acquisition of Thorn Americas. The suit seeks actual damages of $410 million and other unspecified damages, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission document.
"The plaintiffs' attorneys in this case have insisted upon sensationalizing their allegations in a series of self-serving press releases," said Mitch Fadel, Rent-A-Center president, in a press release.
"We intend to stick with the facts," the release continued. "Rent-A-Center has not discriminated and will not discriminate in any manner in the recruiting, hiring, training and promoting of our employees, and we are committed to ensuring equal opportunity for all of our employees."
Fadel said later, "What (the plaintiffs' attorneys) failed to acknowledge in their press release is (that) … we did provide the materials they asked for."
Jerry Schlichter, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said later that Rent-A-Center "vigorously fought" turning over the documents in question, noting that it filed two motions for reconsideration after the court ruling and it lost them both.
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