Court dismisses Saudi Embassy workers’ discrimination case on procedural grounds

Their claims never reached that question. The court dismissed the case on procedure, not merits, and made no finding on whether discrimination occurred. 

Four of the five had signed employment contracts with a forum-selection clause – a term routing any dispute to a body in Saudi Arabia. The court held those clauses were valid and enforceable, which meant their claims had to be heard there, not in Washington. The workers argued Saudi Arabia was effectively closed to them and that pursuing claims there could “cost the plaintiffs their lives,” citing an expert declaration. The court found that showing too thin under binding precedent. 

The judge was not entirely comfortable. He wrote that he was “troubled by the apparently standard inclusion of these forum-selection clauses” in contracts with local staff, pointing to the “imbalance of bargaining power” between the parties. But he said he was “compelled” to enforce them anyway. 

The fifth worker, an administrative employee in the Embassy’s information office, fared differently on one point. The court agreed her clerical role was “commercial” rather than governmental, so foreign sovereign immunity – the doctrine that usually protects governments from lawsuits – did not apply to her suit. That is a useful marker: embassies and foreign governments can be sued as employers when the job is administrative rather than policy-making. 

Her claims still failed – on timing. She left in February 2018 but did not file with the DC Office of Human Rights until February 2020, well past the 300-day window for an ADA charge. Her breach-of-contract claim was also late; the court found the clock started when she signed a severance release in October 2018 accepting $25,385.60 as, in the document’s words, “full payment.”