PHILADELPHIA – After a trial lasting one week, a jury has ordered the City of Philadelphia to pay a total of $1 million to a pair of female, former Philadelphia police officers, who claimed they were the longtime targets of harassment and discrimination in a federal court lawsuit.
The jury awarded each plaintiff $500,000 in damages, a judgment entered by U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Karen S. Marston – and should the City choose not to appeal, it would also be responsible for paying the plaintiffs’ attorney fees.
However, it is not yet known if the City will appeal the jury verdict.
The lawsuit, first filed in July 2019 by Cpl. Audra McCowan and Officer Jennifer Allen in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, accused former Commissioner Richard Ross of failing to act on numerous charges of harassment and discrimination the plaintiffs said they were facing from fellow officers.
The litigation led to Ross’s resignation in August 2019. He was then succeeded by acting commissioner Christine Coulter until a permanent replacement was found in current commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
In the suit, McCowan, an African-American, and Allen, of African-American and Hispanic heritage, both claimed to have been the targets of sexual harassment and discrimination for years. In that time, they said they were the subjects of crude remarks, harassing telephone calls at home, unwanted attention from male officers and groping, including on one occasion in a prayer gathering.
Allen, who had recently became a mother, added that she was harassed for pumping breast milk during work hours and was also the recipient of lewd humor when she reported an incident of her milk bottle being tampered with in an office refrigerator.
McCowan said she approached Ross in February 2019 about an incident of sexual harassment from a male colleague against her, and that Ross rebuffed her claims.
In response to McCowan’s account, Ross is said to have replied, “So why don’t you just order his dumb a— to go sit down and get out of your face, Officer.”
As a result of the constant harassment, McCowan and Allen resigned from the police force.
In the suit, McCowan alleged Ross stated he did not act on the harassment complaint as a form of retribution against her for the plaintiff’s breaking off an alleged, two-year-long affair between the two, spanning 2009 to 2011.
Following the filing of the lawsuit, Ross resigned on Aug. 20, 2019.
The original complaint covered 18 counts against the defendants, including: Disparate treatment, hostile work environment and retaliation under Title VII, violation of protections for nursing mothers and retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act, interference and retaliation under the Family Medical Leave Act, disparate treatment, hostile work environment and retaliation under 42 U.S.C. Section 1981, disparate treatment, hostile work environment and retaliation under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, retaliation under the Pennsylvania Whistleblower Law, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and battery, declaratory relief allegations and injunctive relief allegations.
In addition to the City of Philadelphia and now-former Police Commissioner Ross, ex-Commissioner Coulter, Chief Inspector Daniel MacDonald, Lt. Timothy McHugh, Inspector Michael McCarrick, Sgt. Brent Conway, Sgt. Eric Williford, Sgt. Kevin O’Brien, Sgt. Tamika Allen, Sgt. Herbert Gibbons and Younger were all named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Ross, Coulter, McCarrick and Younger were dismissed from the case this past April.
The plaintiffs also sought to depose Mayor Jim Kenney, a non-party to the suit, for his supposedly having “unique personal knowledge of the Philadelphia Police Department’s policy or custom of discriminating against black female cops.”
Although, the Court granted a protective order precluding the mayor’s testimony earlier in the course of litigation.
The plaintiffs are represented by Ian M. Bryson and Scott E. Diamond of Derek Smith Law Group, in Philadelphia.
The defendants are represented by Brian Matthew Rhodes, Daniel R. Unterberger, Elizabeth U. Okakpu, Erica Kane and Nicole S. Morris of the City of Philadelphia Law Department.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:19-cv-03326
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com