Articles Posted in Employment Discrimination

The late Harris County Constable Glen Cheek regularly referred to women in derogatory and obscene terms, made female employees do his personal shopping, did not properly promote them and fired a female deputy constable for something he would have forgiven a man.

But jurors in the federal sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by Kimberly Owen also heard Harris County attorney Lina Garcia say Owen was fired solely because she was charged with drunken driving. Garcia said Owen raised the gender allegations later because she won’t take responsibility for her own actions.

Opening statements were made in the case before U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore Monday afternoon. Scott Newar, Owen’s lawyer, said this lawsuit against Harris County is about the way woman are treated in law enforcement throughout the county.

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A federal jury in Montgomery returned a $5.79 million verdict against Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama and a mid-level manager for sexual harassment, negligence and retaliation.

“The jury awarded double what we were asking for,” said Birmingham attorney Alicia Haynes, represented former Hyundai employee Tammy Edwards. “They were upset at the negligence.”

The jury, which returned its verdict, awarded $795,000 in compensatory and $5 million in punitive damages against Hyundai. The jury also returned a $10,000 punitive verdict against manager Mike Swindle after a nearly two-week trial before the U.S. District Court.

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A Middlesex Superior Court judge has rebuked the city manager of Cambridge, saying his “reprehensible” behavior amounted to a systematic campaign to oust a city employee who had filed a discrimination complaint.

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Latino workers in California and Texas allegedly punished for speaking Spanish in their workplaces will be granted up to $450,000, free English classes and other relief under a consent decree approved this week in a class-action lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit alleged that Skilled Healthcare Group Inc. and affiliated firms, based in Orange County with facilities in six Western and Southern states, enforced an English-only rule against Latinos but not other ethnic groups speaking Tagalog and other languages.

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The Minneapolis City Council voted overwhelmingly to settle a discrimination lawsuit brought by five black police officers against the city, the police department and Chief Tim Dolan.

The council voted 12-1 to pay the officers a total of $740,000 to settle the suit. The city admitted no guilt and will take no further action.

Lt. Don Harris will receive $187,668 from the settlement; Lt. Medaria Arradondo and Sgt. Charlie Adams each will get $187,666; Lt. Lee Edwards will receive $137,000; and Sgt. Dennis Hamilton will get $40,000.

A federal jury awarded $2.3 M to a Los Angeles police officer who said she was sexually harassed and gave birth to a stillborn child because of the stress.

Officer Melissa Borck, 45, said she suffered discrimination and abuse while she was at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division in 1996, and was retaliated against for reporting the harassment to Internal Affairs. The unanimous jury verdict comes a decade after Borck first filed the lawsuit in April, 1999. A mistrial was declared after her first trial in 2007 because of juror misconduct.

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A New Jersey jury has awarded an UPS employee $1 million after finding that his bosses at United Parcel Service retaliated against him after he complained that managers were violating company policies.

In his lawsuit, 51-year-old Michael Battaglia said he was demoted and assigned to the night shift after lodging his complaints in October 2005.

Following a month long trial in state Superior Court in New Brunswick, a jury found that UPS violated New Jersey’s anti-discrimination and whistleblower protection laws.

On Aug. 29, 2008 a jury awarded $3.3 million to an emergency medical technician who said her employer transferred her after she complained that she had been sexually assaulted and harassed by a co-worker.

In 2004, Kathy Nieves told management at East Texas Medical Center EMS that she had been harassed at work and assaulted in her home by Jeremy Cox, also an EMT.

Cox denied the allegations and subsequently accused Nieves of harassment. Nieves claimed that in retaliation for her complaints, East Texas reprimanded her, transferred her and precluded her from working in Coffman County.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., will pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit claiming the company discriminated against African-Americans in recruiting and hiring truck drivers.

The lawsuit was filed in 2004 by Daryal Nelson, who claimed he was rejected for a truck-driver position because of his race. Nelson filed the suit in federal court in Helena, Arkansas, on behalf of all black applicants who believe they were rejected or deterred from applying for the positions because of race. The lawsuit was given class-action, or group, status in May 2007.

Wal-Mart’s motions to dismiss the case or decertify the class were denied last month.

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More workers are being let go as corporate layoffs have accelerated in recent weeks. And more often, people are looking around and complaining that they have been unfairly or improperly dismissed.

Former employees of Lehman Brothers, say they were not given the required 60 days’ pay before their jobs vanished, while Dell is being sued over allegations of age and sex discrimination against workers.

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