SAMPLE MATTERS HANDLED
Discrimination Cases
After being denied a promotion, a federal government employee claimed discrimination on the basis of gender and retaliation. She had expressed interest in the Acting Technical Advisor position but was not allowed an opportunity to volunteer for that job. Although the position would not have resulted in a pay increase, it offered a valuable opportunity for growth and experience. A male employee volunteered for the position during a meeting held on the female employee’s AWS day off. For six months, the employee asked her supervisor if the male was ATA but was told he was not. After uncovering indisputable written evidence of the male being ATA, she confronted her supervisor. He denied the action again, but the next day gave the male ATA a temporary promotion. She filed an EEO complaint. A year later, a permanent GS-14 position opened up and the male employee was selected. The promotion panel explicitly relied upon the ATA duties and those acquired by the male employee during his temporary promotion for his selection. The female employee filed another complaint, which was consolidated for hearing with the first complaint. After a one-day hearing, the EEOC Administrative Judge found intentional discrimination and retaliation, and awarded the employee a retroactive promotion to the GS-14 position with backpay, interest and attorney fees.
Currently handling a high profile racial discrimination matter involving a Federal employee in Washington, D.C. Since being assigned to the position of “Special Assistant,” complainant was discriminated in the area of assignments, evaluations, promotions, working space and proposed termination. Complainant was the only African American in his department and forced to take a disability retirement as a result of the hostile work environment created by his supervisors. Complainant was misled into believing that his “promotion” would greatly benefit his career, when in actuality it was nothing more than a trap door to termination.
A federal government employee in Dallas, Texas needed representation before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in a complex case alleging hostile working environment, discrimination based on gender, race, disability, retaliation and religion. The client had over 30 complaints combined into one hearing, which took over 12 days to complete. Although no decision has been rendered, the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations (OFO) recently reversed the decision of another EEOC Administrative Judge (AJ) in the same District Office dismissing many of the client’s complaints. The OFO found religious discrimination when the client was denied religious compensatory time and remanded the matter for a hearing on compensatory damages.
One minority client worked for the Clerk of the Court for Baltimore County. She had been terminated from her position due to alleged performance deficiencies. We presented evidence at an internal administrative hearing that the deficiencies were normal work problems, that other non-minority employees had the same or worse work problems but were not fired. The employee was reinstated with full backpay.
Discrimination based upon retaliation by a Federal employer. The employee had filed several discrimination complaints based upon his non-promotion due to his disability. In addition, the employee was responsible for “Whistle Blowing”, in that he reported the organization to the U. S. Department of Labor for various Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) violations. Employer contended that such promotions were given to employees more geographically centrally located to the facility in accordance with a union contract. However, this contention was disputed by the Union Steward.
Age Discrimination Cases
A sixty six year old Grade 14, Emergency Response Coordinator with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was passed over for promotion to a Grade 15, Senior Emergency Response Coordinator. Our client had worked for twenty two years on the most high profile nuclear disasters including, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. He was personally selected by Hans Blix to work on several projects involving nuclear power. However, all this didn't matter to the NRC, when they selected a thirty seven year old, who could barely tie his shoe laces. The firm took great pride in going to trial, learning and then explaining the most complex aspects of nuclear disaster response and then destroying the NRC defense on cross-examination. While the government contended that the younger candidate had a greater "breadth of experience" and a more polished interview, the selecting official's interview notes revealed that he couldn't adequately describe the position's duties and believed that one of his shortcomings of his current position as Headquarter's Operations Officer included a myopic scope of the agency.
Discipline
A federal government employee in Tampa, Florida needed representation before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) after she was fired from her job. She had been out on Absent Without Leave (AWOL) due to the Agency’s failure to grant her reasonable accommodation. Her position involved continuous talking and she had developed TMJ after a number of car accidents. She provided evidence of other vacant positions in the same geographical area for which she was qualified, and of another employee in the same position with TMJ who was recently reassigned to an identical vacant position. The case is pending before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is reconsidering the split decision of the MSPB.
Contract Disputes
A psychiatric nurse came to our office claiming he had been locked out. He had a written contract with a psychiatrist for services including phlebotomy, administration of medication and performing physical examinations. The psychiatrist gave no real reason for the lockout. We filed suit in the Circuit Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County for $12,000, claiming breach of contract. The Defendant psychiatrist then claimed that our client had caused him to lose pharmaceutical contracts and countersued the client for $650,000. We amended our complaint to ask for $1.2 million in damages for libel. Due to zealous representation of the client over the actions and omissions of the Defendant and his attorneys, we obtained a default judgment on our claims and summary judgment on the counterclaim, and eventually settled the case for $30,000 plus attorney fees.
Overtime Cases
Clients were quasi-engineers (technicians) who worked along side professional engineers, and were classified as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Exempt employees are not paid time and a half for overtime in excess of 40 hours per week, or suffered and permitted overtime (coming in early, leaving late, working over lunch). We showed that the employees, although highly proficient technically, were not “professionals” and received two years of backpay damages, suffered and permitted overtime and liquidated damages equal to all other damages added together.
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