Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog
A Travis County jury has awarded a woman $900,000 after finding that she was fired from her job at a state civil rights agency for complaining about discrimination against minorities at the agency.
The jury arrived at the verdict after a six-day trial in a lawsuit that Marilou Morrison filed against the Texas Commission on Human Rights and the Texas Workforce Commission.
The agency that is supposed to enforce civil rights is being hit with basically a million dollar judgment for violating the very statutes they are required to enforce.
Morrison was a 58-year-old investigator at the Texas Commission on Human Rights when she told agency commissioners in December 2002 that the agency’s former director, David Powell, was discriminating against black and Hispanic employees and applicants, according to the lawsuit.
Case files that Morrison was working on began to disappear after she complained to commissioners, and at a meeting she was falsely accused of threatening Vickie Covington, director of enforcement and employment investigations manager, according to the lawsuit. Morrison filed a written denial of the threat but was fired by Powell on Jan. 23, 2003, for conduct “that seriously put in danger the safety of Ms. Covington,” the lawsuit said.
The jury decided that the Texas Commission on Human Rights took adverse personnel actions against Morrison, “because of her opposition to an unlawful discriminatory practice.”
If you or a family member has been wrongfully terminated or suffered from employment discrimination then please contact the Fort Worth Texas Employment Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.