Curley v. Google LLC

Background

April Curley, Desiree Mayon, and Ronika Lewis filed a proposed class action against Google. The plaintiffs alleged that Black employees experienced discrimination involving job levels, wages, performance reviews, promotions, leadership opportunities, work conditions, and termination. The Third Amended Complaint asserted race-discrimination and hostile-work-environment claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title VII, California law, New York law, and New York City law, as well as a California equal-pay claim and retaliation claims.

The parties exchanged substantial discovery, including nearly 200,000 pages of documents and workforce data totaling more than 48 million records. Their experts analyzed issues including attrition, racial representation, compensation, and wage loss. After mediation and further negotiations, the parties informed the court that they had reached a settlement in principle.

Proposed Settlement

The proposed agreement creates a $50 million settlement fund. The fund would compensate settlement-class members and pay court-approved attorneys’ fees, costs, service awards, and settlement-administration expenses. Payments would be determined through an Individual Claims Resolution Process rather than a fixed formula. The process may consider post-Google wage loss, emotional distress, hostile work environment, and wrongful discharge.

For settlement purposes, the proposed class includes Google employees identified in Google’s records as Black or Black+ who worked in specified job levels in California or New York during the periods stated in the agreement, subject to exclusions. The court stated that the class includes more than 4,000 members. Class members who do not opt out would release race-based employment-discrimination and retaliation claims based on the same factual basis as the settled claims. The three settlement-class representatives have individual claims that the agreement does not resolve. Rayna Reid’s claims also remain pending because she does not meet the settlement-class definition due to geographic location.

The agreement provides non-monetary relief for three years after its effective date. Google will continue analyzing pay for unexplained race-based differences before finalizing annual pay changes, maintain methods for employees to report certain employment concerns, investigate those concerns, and continue specified pay-transparency practices. Through August 2026, Google will not require employees to enter mandatory arbitration agreements for employment-related disputes or enforce existing mandatory arbitration agreements for those disputes.

The agreement names Atticus Administration, LLC as claims administrator and provides for a trustee, Professor Lynn P. Cohn, to monitor the individual claims process and make final awards. The agreement states that no portion of the gross settlement fund will revert to Google. The parties’ counsel indicated that they may seek attorneys’ fees of up to 25% of the fund, or $12.5 million, estimated expenses of $211,500.82, and service awards of up to $50,000 for each of the three settlement-class representatives.

Court’s Analysis

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e), a class settlement requires court approval. The court evaluated whether the proposed settlement fell within the range of possible approval and whether the negotiations were serious, informed, and non-collusive; whether the agreement had obvious deficiencies; whether it treated class members fairly; and whether the notice and claims procedures were adequate.

For settlement purposes, the court found the requirements of Rule 23(a) satisfied: the class was sufficiently numerous, members shared common legal and factual questions, the representatives’ claims were typical of the class, and the representatives and counsel adequately represented the class. The court also found the requirements of Rule 23(b)(3) satisfied because common questions predominated and a class action was superior to individual lawsuits. The court therefore provisionally certified the class for settlement purposes only.

The court found that the proposed settlement was within the range of possible approval. It considered the disputed damages estimates, the parties’ differing statistical methods, and the risks and costs of continued litigation. It also found that the parties reached the agreement through extensive discovery and arms-length mediation, found no obvious deficiencies at that stage, and concluded that the allocation plan did not provide improper preferential treatment.

The court approved the Individual Claims Resolution Process for settlement-class members. It found the proposed notice sufficient after requiring the parties to add the claims administrator’s name and address. The court deferred consideration of attorneys’ fees and service awards until final approval and stated that final approval would require additional information about counsel’s hours, experience, and billing rates.

Ruling and Schedule

The court granted preliminary approval of the proposed settlement agreement, including provisional certification of the settlement class. It appointed April Curley, Ronika Lewis, and Desiree Mayon as settlement-class representatives; Stowell & Friedman, Ltd., Ben Crump Law, PLLC, and Sani Law, APC as settlement-class counsel; and Atticus Administration, LLC as claims administrator. It approved the notice subject to the required change.

The order required Google to provide the settlement-class list to the claims administrator within seven days. The claims administrator must mail the settlement notice within 17 days. The deadline for class members to opt out or object is March 20, 2026; the deadline for the final-approval motion is April 2, 2026; and the final approval hearing is scheduled for May 7, 2026. The order did not grant final approval of the settlement.