Placement Agency to Pay $2-Million Settlement : Lawsuit: The employment firm Interplace agreed to the record amount to resolve federal charges of ‘blatant discrimination’ in its job placement practices.

In the largest settlement of its kind, a Los Angeles placement agency has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve federal civil charges of “blatant, widespread discrimination” in its job referral practices.

The settlement, the largest ever against an employment agency, arose from a 1989 lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Interplace, a placement agency specializing in bilingual speakers of Japanese and English.

The EEOC found that any job seekers over 40 who weren’t of Japanese ancestry were potential victims of discrimination by Interplace, said Marian Halley, an attorney with the agency.

“This was a case of blatant discrimination,” she said. “We believe we have stopped the discrimination, and that our actions will deter Interplace and other companies from further discrimination.”

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The case sparked further EEOC investigations into discriminatory practices by employment agencies across the country, leading to EEOC lawsuits against firms using similar systems in North Carolina and New York.

Interplace was once part of the scandal-plagued Japanese firm Recruit Co., but is now a privately held company with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Gardena, Torrance and New York, according to its attorney.

The EEOC said it found out about Interplace after employees in the firm’s San Francisco office told the local press.

EEOC investigators found documents showing that Interplace assigned codes such as “don’t talk to Maria” to signify that Latino applicants would not be accepted, “talk to Maryanne” to denote a black applicant, or “see Mary in suite 20-30” to show that the employer wanted an applicant between the ages of 20 and 30.

In February, 1990, U.S. District Judge Stanley Weigel ordered five Interplace offices closed for four days because the company was destroying case documents in violation of an earlier court order.

Jo Anne Frankfurt of the nonprofit Employment Law Center in San Francisco, which represented black workers in the suit, said a lawsuit of this magnitude “makes clear that these kinds of practices should not be condoned, and it represents a major victory for workers wrongfully treated by employment agencies.”

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Interplace’s lawyer, Walter Cochran-Bond, refused to comment on the case. “I think the consent decree pretty much speaks for itself,” he said.

Under the settlement, $1.62 million will be paid to more than 3,000 individuals who applied to Interplace for placement between March, 1987, and March, 1990. Halley said the EEOC will monitor the firm’s records for two years.