In a sign of just how far a recent Supreme Court decision on age discrimination could reach into labor law, a federal judge today cited the opinion as she ruled against a woman who had sued Washington, D.C. under the city’s juror protection law.
LilliAnn Williams-Jackson, a former guidance counselor at J.O. Wilson Elementary School, filed suit against the city in 2007, alleging she was transferred out of her job at the school because her principal was angry that Williams-Jackson had spent four months serving on a jury.
In ruling against Williams-Jackson, Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, in which the justices ruled that plaintiffs filing age discrimination suits were required to prove that they would not have been fired “but for” their age.
Collyer found that the language used in the D.C. Jury Systems Improvement Act, which Williams-Jackson sued under, closely mirrored that of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the law which was the subject of Gross. Therefore, she wrote, the standard should be interpreted as the same, requiring Williams-Jackson to prove that she would not have been transferred but for her jury service.
“The Court has no doubt that Dr. Jackson’s jury service was a motivating factor behind [the principal’s] acceptance of the loss of a guidance counselor,” Collyer wrote. “What is lacking is any evidence that her jury service was ‘the ‘but for’ cause.”
According to the opinion, Williams-Jackson, a Ph.D. from Michigan State University, had worked as a teacher and guidance counselor at J.O. Wilson for more than 20 years before she was transferred. In 2007 she spent four months serving as a juror on a death penalty case.
J.O. Wilson’s principal, Cheryl Warley, “made it clear that she was unhappy with Dr. Jackson’s absence,” announcing that the counselor had “volunteered to serve on a jury, suggesting she was not dedicated to her job.” She also lowered Williams-Jackson’s performance evaluation from “exceeds expectations” to “meets expectations,” until a union representative called to complain.
At the end of the school year, a committee led by one of Warley’s alleged protégés met to discuss moving some of its employees to other schools — a process called “excessing’ —because J.O. Wilson was over its budget. The committee settled on Williams-Jackson.
While Collyer showed little sympathy for Warley in her opinion — she called her an “unconvincing witness” and noted that the school’s committee had been wrought with problems — she said that the school’s budget provided a legitimate rationale for transferring Williams-Jackson.
“The Court has wrestled with this case for much longer than it wished because of the credibility differences between Dr. Jackson and Ms. Warley,” Collyer wrote. But the Gross case, she concluded, clarified her decision.
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