Cook’s Pest Control Discriminates Against Black Applicants, Class Action Alleges

Campbell Law assembled a three law firm team to prosecute a class action case against the country’s eighth largest pest control company – Cook’s Pest Control, Inc. Cook’s is headquartered in Decatur, Alabama. (www.cookspest.com)

Among other allegations, the suit asserts that Cook’s illegally uses a written math and geometry test to screen applicants for many types of jobs. The test disproportionately excludes African-Americans as candidates for jobs, and the test is not a valid predictor of success in the various jobs, according to allegations of the lawsuit. Federal employment laws have for decades required companies to carefully "validate" employment tests and other selection criterion that disproportionately impact minority groups or women. Plaintiffs allege in the case that the tests are not valid.

Two rejected applicants, Christen Dotson and Marion Waters, are asking Birmingham, Alabama-based U.S. District Court Judge Scott Coogler (N.D. Ala.) to certify the case as a class action against the company which operates in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia.

Campbell Law’s Tom Campbell is a former partner of major corporate law firms where he defended disparate impact race and sex discrimination class action cases for large regional and national employers. Campbell is joined in the Waters and Dotson v. Cook’s case by another experienced employment "defense" lawyer, Sam Hill, of Birmingham. Hill and Campbell brought a nationally recognized Birmingham, Alabama law firm into the case – Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis (www.wcqp.com) because of its experience representing workers in important employment litigation over the past several decades. Campbell knows these lawyers well because he often defended class actions the Wiggins Childs firm brought against his corporate clients. According to Campbell, "Bob Wiggins and his partners, like Sam Fisher, know as much about test validation, statistics, and class action employment discrimination law as any actively-practicing lawyers in America today. They were good opponents in past cases and I look forward to being on their side for a change."