City settles 2 lawsuits for $250,000

 

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

Two separate lawsuits filed against Key West by a former employee and a job applicant will cost the city $250,000.

City Attorney Shawn Smith recently announced the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Kia Scott, a former city employee working in the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. Scott was fired by her supervisor in 2011 after taking time off due to her pregnancy.

According to the lawsuit, Scott, a security guard and custodian at the community center, took time off in July, August and September 2011 under the federal Family Medical Leave Act. Scott had already used up her vacation and sick days when she told her supervisor, Lee Thompson, that she needed additional time off. Scott said she contacted Thompson and showed a note from her doctor recommending bed rest.

Attorney Michael Burke, who represented Key West in the case, said Thompson claimed Scott did not contact her but her phone records show that the two women communicated during the week of Sept. 12, 2011. But when Scott returned to work on Sept. 19, Thompson fired her.

Burke told City Attorney Smith in a letter that the city had better than a 50 percent chance at winning the case but if Scott prevailed, and the judge ruled that the city committed “willful” violations of the Family Medical Leave Act, Scott would be awarded double her back pay for a total of $151,460. The city would also incur legal expenses of approximately $13,000.

As a result, Smith recommended the city settle the pregnancy discrimination case for $100,000. The case had been scheduled to go to trial on Dec. 15.

In the other suit settlement, the city will pay Karen Cabanas Voss $150,000 for requiring her to take a drug test after she had been offered the job as the city’s solid waste coordinator in January 2013. City policy states that all job applicants must submit to a urine drug test prior to accepting any job offer. Voss was offered the position but refused to comply with the drug test and the job was offered to another candidate.

However, on May 9 of this year, Judge James Lawrence King ruled that a blanket drug test policy based on suspicionless cause was unconstitutional and violated the U.S. Constitution’s protections against unfair searches. Voss, an attorney herself, said that government drug tests are only permissible for “safety sensitive” positions.

Attorney Burke, who handled the Voss case for the city, as well, said the city’s 1999 drug policy was intended to prevent drug and alcohol abuse in the workplace. But Judge King rejected that argument.

Voss’ case had been scheduled to go to court on Dec. 1. The $150,000 settlement was paid on Dec. 2.

The city’s insurer will cover most of the settlement costs. City commissioners approved both settlements without discussion.

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]