Two women bus drivers agreed with an east King County School District to settle their cases against the District for $425,000. The case settled weeks prior to trial. Following an all day and early evening mediation in Kirkland, Wa., at the law firm which represented the two longtime school bus driving employees of the District, a resolution was eventually reached many weeks later.
Robert Kornfeld, of Kornfeld, Trudell, Bowen and Lingenbrink, PLLC, was the attorney representing both women plaintiffs in the underlying action filed in King County Superior Court.
Mr. Kornfeld was able to show convincingly to the District and its insurer they had certain liability exposure to a plaintiff’s verdict, in favor of two women bus drivers, who claimed they had been discriminated against because of their gender. There was ample evidence to show a school district mechanic in the transportation department had harassed, bullied and picked on only women, or predominantly women, bus drivers over the course of 10 + years.
Unfortunately, the school district did not take timely and effective remedial action to correct the problem in the workplace of the Transportation Department for these women bus drivers. Plaintiffs contended that no prompt and effective corrective action was taken because they were women. No one took their complaints seriously.
The evidence showed that the District failed to eliminate the harassment and bullying by this mechanic. The conditions were so intolerable to work under that one of the women bus drivers could not return to work. She contended that she was constructively discharged, meaning, that she was effectively fired, because no reasonable person could have worked under the conditions she was forced to work. She contended that the District’s school board and the administration turned a blind eye to what was going on in the Transportation Department because it was a male dominated, managed and run organization.
Further the plaintiffs contended that, although there were two women in the administration, their positions as women in the administration were merely symbolic as figured heads only, with no real power, & they had no disciplinary authority over this mechanic. Plaintiffs were able to convince the District that the evidence painted it as an administration which was like an “old boy’s club” favoring men over women.
In addition, the plaintiffs were able to show the District that its employee mechanic, the alleged harasser, bullied and treated women unfairly, not men. For some reason the District protected and favored this man, over that of many helpless and hard working women bus drivers, including both plaintiffs. Here is how that was done.
You see, there were about 42 bus drivers in the Transportation Department, 24 of them were women and 18 were men. There were complaints from 10 women about this same mechanic harasser. The complaints were in writing and spanned a 10 year period. There were no written complaints from any man bus driver regarding this same male mechanic. Clearly this harasser targeted women, not men, and he was protected by the male dominated administration of the school district and the male director of the Transportation Department under which the male mechanic worked. The administrations ignored the complaints and did not take them seriously.
After nearly four years of trying to bring this case to justice for the two women, who were regularly belittled, bullied and harassed, the case settled weeks prior to the scheduled jury trial date.
For more information, fee free to e-mail Rob Rob@Kornfeldlaw.com or call our toll free number for a FREE CONSULTATION about your case or to learn more about this case. (800) 282-4878. www.Kornfeldlaw.com.
