Embattled DXC Technology Hit With Federal Discrimination Suit

After DXC Technology acquired a health-care company last year, the IT services firm allegedly terminated a 56-year-old African American woman although she had been assured by company executives that her job was not in danger, the woman stated in a lawsuit that was brought to federal court Tuesday.

Tracy Beach, a former operations manager at Molina Medicaid Solutions, filed suit accusing DXC of racial discrimination, age discrimination, and gender discrimination for firing her and four other women after assuring them no one would be laid off, her suit states. The suit landed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday.

“As a direct result of Defendants' willful, wanton, and reckless discriminatory conduct, plaintiff has suffered damages, including, but not limited to, lost wages, out of pocket losses, substantial emotional and mental distress, humiliation, anxiety, embarrassment, depression, aggravation, annoyance and inconvenience, and those additional damages detailed herein,” her suit states. “Defendants' actions were willful, wanton, reckless, and malicious and/or undertaken in the direct disregard for the civil rights and sensibilities of Plaintiff, entitling her to damages including punitive damages and attorneys' fees and costs.”

[RELATED: Ex-DXC EVP Stephen Hilton’s Suit Against DXC: What You Need To Know]

DXC acquired Molina Medicaid, a 130-employee Medicaid management information systems business based in Charleston, West Virginia, in October 2018 and in a series of town hall style meetings reassured employees that no jobs were being cut, the suit states.

“Prior to the acquisition, defendants affirmatively stated in town hall meetings regarding the acquisition that no employees would lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition,” the Beach suit states.

Beach had worked at the company since 2003, the suit states, earning success along the way until eventually rising to operations manager with an annual salary of $97,000.

“Plaintiff was a model employee who received several promotions, regular raises, bonuses, and other performance-related rewards,” the suit states.

Then in November 2018, Beach, a month after she says she was reassured there would be no job losses, and after the acquisition was completed, DXC terminated her employment along with four others.

“All five employees are females, three out of the five are at least 55 years old, and two out of the five are African American,” the complaint states. “Defendants retained and did not terminate the employment of various non-minority employees.”

The workforce reduction did not hit any of the roughly 50 male employees, Beach states. DXC then hired or attempted to hire younger workers to replace the three women over 55 years old, the suit states.

When reached by phone, the West Virginia lawyer for DXC, Justin Harrison, told CRN “I haven’t been authorized to speak about it.”

DXC’s corporate office said it did not have any comment on the suit. Beach’s lawyer did not return a call for comment.

This is the second federal lawsuit brought by former DXC employees in as many months, with former EVP Stephen Hilton filing a $9.9 million breach of contract suit against DXC Technology in February. Hilton’s initial complaint had sought $14.3 million, but a cap on damages was reduced via a court order in a filing made after that complaint.

In that complaint, Hilton—a high-ranking executive who was once in the company’s CEO succession plan— accused CEO Mike Lawrie of creating a toxic work environment, as well as ordering the alteration of the vesting dates on his stock options to avoid paying $20 million in severance that he would be owed, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan.

That case has an initial conference scheduled for April 12.

Beach filed her lawsuit in a West Virginia county court, but DXC has elected to bring the case to U.S. District Court in West Virginia because the amount Beach could be awarded would likely exceed $75,000, with possible compensatory and punitive awards pushing the possible payout well into six-figures, DXC stated in a filing Monday.