A former Augusta employee who filed repeated discrimination complaints and then sued the city in three legal actions will get a major payout concession from the city – an $800,000 settlement.
City commissioners approved the settlement Tuesday, April 26, to pay Melinda Beazley Pearson. According to court documents, the city administration believed a settlement was possible once its insurance carrier affirmed any settlement was covered.
Pearson worked for the city in the parks department for 30 years. She was terminated in February 2013. She had failed to return to work after an eight-month absence without applying for long-term disability or providing a doctor’s statement that she would be able to return to work within the next six months.
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Pearson filed suit in January 2015 and filed additional complaints that measured 47 pages and alleged the city violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act, as well as claims under the principles of due process and equal protection.
The federal judge in Augusta ruled against Pearson on all her claims and on appeal the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with his findings, except for one issue.
As the appellate court’s May 11, 2020 opinion states, the city’s failed at a crucial step in defending itself against the sex discrimination claim. The city did not counter Pearson’s claim that male managers in the parks department were allowed to claim comp time off the book and turn in bogus timecards as she had done.
The city’s policy has been to allow employees paid by the hour to use compensation time. Employees, like Pearson and other managers, were not allowed comp time because their jobs were higher paid, straight salary positions.
Pearson claimed in her lawsuits that managers in the parks department were allowed to record their hours worked over a normal workday and take those hours off at another time. The timecards seen by the payroll employees and human resources never reflected those comp hours, however.
In 1999, the human resources department officially informed all employees that managers would no longer be allowed comp time. Pearson said the practice continued in the parks department, however. After 2004, Pearson began missing weeks and months of work because of work-related injuries and medical complications from a severe infection, according to the 11th Circuit’s opinion.
In December 2011, Pearson’s use of comp time again was investigated, and she was demoted in May 2012, losing about 50 percent of her former manager’s salary. Within weeks of her demotion to maintenance worker, Pearson reported a back injury that required eight months of leave. By the end of January 2013, Pearson was informed she had no additional leave and she had to return by Feb. 13, 2013, or she would be terminated. She did not return.
To win a discrimination claim, a plaintiff must prove she is a member of a protected class and that she was treated unfairly. If she does, the employer then has the burden of proving it had legitimate, non-discriminatory, reasons for taking adverse action. The plaintiff can still win a case if she can prove that the justification provided by her employer was pretextual.
Pearson was demoted for taking comp time and submitted timecards that reflected she had worked during that time. But Pearson had proof male managers in the parks department also claimed comp time off the books and submitted falsified timecards, according to the 11th Circuit’s opinion.
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The 11th Circuit reversed the judge’s ruling in favor of the city over the issue of Pearson’s demotion. The appellate court affirmed the dismissal of all of Pearson’s other claims.
Augusta commissioners discussed the matter in executive session and then voted almost unanimously to accept the settlement. District 8 Commissioner Brandon Garrett was the lone holdout.
According to Garrett, he felt broadsided by suddenly being presented with a settlement agreement on a 10-year-old case.
“I wasn’t in public service or in office when this case started and I could not vote to spend that amount of money on a case that I knew so little about,” Garrett said.
District 3 Commissioner Catherine McKnight says she wavered initially, but ultimately took the advice of the attorney for the city, Randy Frails, to settle and avoid a jury trial that could have cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.
“I’m not one to just throw out a chunk of money like that, but the outcome could have been a lot worse, you never know what a jury is going to do. I just felt like it was time to put the thing to rest,” McKnight said.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
