Press Release
Gunn Coble LLP Secures Landmark
$28 Million Race Pay Equity Settlement
Los Angeles, March 17, 2025
Gunn Coble LLP, a Los Angeles civil rights law firm, today announced a $28 million settlement with Google (GOOG:NASDAQ) in a high-profile race/ethnicity California Equal Pay Act class action. Judge Charles F. Adams of the Santa Clara County Superior Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement on March 12, 2025.
Filed in 2021, the case claimed that Google paid employees who identified as Hispanic, Latinx, Indigenous, Native American, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders and/or Alaska Native less than White and/or Asian/Asian American employees for substantially similar work.
Plaintiff Ana Cantu on behalf of herself and similarly situated current and former Google employees claimed, among other things, that Google had a practice whereby it started new diverse hires at lower salaries and job levels than their White/Asian/Asian-American counterparts for similar jobs in part because Google would base starting pay and level assignment on prior salary, which historically includes race and ethnicity-based disparities.
Plaintiff relied on a leaked 2022 Google employee internal pay spreadsheet which showed that diverse employees reported lower compensation than that reported by White, Asian and Asian-American employees performing substantially similar work. Plaintiff was able to confirm the leaked data findings when a labor economist analyzed payroll data produced by Google.
“I commend Ms. Cantu who brought this suit against Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world. She risked her career to raise race/ethnicity pay disparity at Google,” said Cathy Coble, founding partner of Gunn Coble LLP. “I also want to acknowledge the bravery of both the diverse and ally Googlers who self-reported their pay and leaked that data to the media, enabling us to push for discovery of the data necessary to support this class action. Suspected pay inequity is too easily concealed without this kind of collective action from employees.”
As a part of the settlement, Google has agreed to work with a Labor Economist and Industrial/Occupational Psychologist to review Google’s annual pay equity audits and process for determining level at hire and review their recommendations to address the allegations raised in the lawsuit.
Beth Gunn, founding partner of Gunn Coble LLP, said “Despite the current national political climate, I hope California will continue to take the lead in enacting and enforcing civil rights laws like the California Equal Pay Act. Committing to closing the loopholes allowing discriminatory wage gaps to continue will stop losses of millions of dollars in employee take-home pay and tax revenue to the State, and ensure that workers of diverse races and ethnicities are equitably compensated. We hope this result will prompt California employers to seriously commit to this goal.”
The case is Ana Cantu v. Google, LLC, et al. (Case No. 21CV392049, Santa Clara County Superior Court). Co-counsel Jennifer Kramer of Kramer Brown Hui LLP, a longstanding civil rights advocate, has been preliminarily approved as class counsel along with Gunn Coble LLP.
