Experts: Bias suit can go on despite key party's death

Despite the death of a key party to a federal lawsuit, legal experts said the discrimination action sparked by the man against his employer can likely go forward without him.

Kevin Pierson was stabbed to death in his bedroom in Central Islip and found last Friday, police said. At the time of his death, Pierson, 38, was at the center of a federal lawsuit against his employer, M. Slavin and Sons, a seafood distributor based in Brooklyn.

In December, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the suit against the company, naming Pierson as the "charging party" and saying that Slavin owners and management "created a hostile and abusive work environment" for him and other male employees with racist language and sexually explicit touching, among other allegations.

In a court filing this month, the company denied all of the EEOC's allegations. Company attorney Greg Riolo said Tuesday that the employees were "devastated" by Pierson's death and continued to deny the EEOC claims.

Suit can survive death

Joanna Grossman, a Hofstra law professor who teaches employment discrimination law, said Pierson's death may complicate the work of EEOC attorneys but that legally it "makes no difference [to the suit], the action survives the death," she said.

The EEOC, an independent federal agency, is charged with enforcing federal laws against employment discrimination, including race, age, sex, religion and discrimination based on national origin. It received more than 93,000 complaints of workplace discrimination last fiscal year and filed only 314 lawsuits, according to EEOC statistics.

Cynthia Estlund of New York University School of Law says the number of complaints and the agency's limited resources means it must pick and choose the suits it pursues.

"If the EEOC has filed a lawsuit, it suggests that they have done a significant amount of investigation and believe they have enough to go ahead . . . and that it is worth it for the public for them to go ahead," said Estlund, who teaches labor and employment law.

Sunu Chandy, the EEOC's senior trial attorney on the case, said Tuesday she couldn't discuss the suit. "We're cooperating with law enforcement and I can't comment on anything at this time," she said.

Bryan White, an EEOC spokesman, declined to comment on the specifics but speaking generally, White said a lawsuit could go forward without a specific charging party.

Threat alleged

The suit alleges that after Pierson filed the EEOC complaint, one company owner told Pierson, "I'm not going to kill you, at least not yet."

Riolo said the threat never happened, and the company's court papers also deny the threat took place.

Det. Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky of the Suffolk homicide squad said the department was aware of the lawsuit and the alleged threat.

"We're looking into everything, including that," he said. "We're talking to a lot of employees, friends and other people. We've had cooperation throughout."

Sophia Chang contributed to this story