County Files Appeal
in Atlanta-Fulton Bias Suit
Fulton County, Georgia, is asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss or retry a two-week case that concluded January 16 with a $23.4-million verdict to seven white female Atlanta–Fulton County Public Library workers who claimed they suffered from reverse discrimination after job transfers. The jury-award judgment in compensatory and punitive damages was later reduced to $16.8 million by Northern District of Georgia Judge Beverly B. Martin.
According to an October 7 Law.com report, County Attorney Overtis Hicks Brantley filed a September 4 brief that maintains the defendants in the case—the library board chairman, two other board members, and the executive director—should be immune from liability as government employees because they acted within the law and did not realize that the librarians’ “lateral transfers with no loss of pay and no change in job classification would rise to the level of an 'adverse employment action.’”
The county also argues that Judge Martin erred in permitting the jury to review county documents, including memos between the deputy county attorney and the library director discussing whether the transfers would violate the county’s antidiscrimination policies, which were protected by attorney-client privilege.
As an alternative to dismissing the judgment, the brief asks the appellate court to reduce compensatory damages to no more than $100,000 for each plaintiff, and either eliminate the punitive damage award or reduce it to no more than $200,000 for each plaintiff.
Posted October 14, 2002.
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