Closed Case
Gender Discrimination in Employment
Settled in 1998

When Lois Jenson went to the public library in 1984 to find out if there was a word for what she and other women miners experienced on a daily basis (the phrase, she learned, was "sexual harassment"), little did she know that she was embarking on a quest that would take nearly two decades to complete. After the Minnesota Attorney General took Ms. Jenson's complaint as far as he could, she contacted dozens of lawyers, but only Sprenger + Lang was willing to take on the powerful mining industry in northern Minnesota.

Sprenger + Lang took over the representation in 1988 and then commenced the nation's first sexual harassment class action in 1989. A landmark decision was handed down in 1991 – following a two week evidentiary hearing, the District Court in Minnesota established the first ever sexual harassment class of women employees. The case remains one of the few class actions to be litigated through class certification, a liability trial and a damages trial. After ten years of some of the most contentious employment litigation on record, the women scored a second landmark victory. The Eighth Circuit reversed the trial court's award of nominal awards to the women with a seminal opinion that establishes the standard courts should follow in assessing damages in sexual harassment cases, as well as setting boundaries for the conduct of defense lawyers in these cases.

A Doubleday book, entitled "Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and The Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law," was published in 2002, describing the treatment of these women iron miners and the hard fought legal victories following Sprenger + Lang's entry into the fray. Lois Jenson’s story inspired the movie “North Country” that premiered in October of 2005.

Reported Decisions:

• 130 F .3d 1287 (8th Cir. 1998)
• 824 F. Supp. 847 (D.Minn. 1993)
• 139 F.R.D. 657 (D.Minn.1991)