Jury awards $1.8M to ex-Kansas City worker who said she was fired for filing complaint
A Jackson County jury has delivered a $1.8 million verdict against the city of Kansas City after a former public works employee claimed she was discriminated against over a disability claim and later fired for filing a complaint with the state.
The city will only be on the hook for approximately $778,000, though, owing to a 2017 state law capping punitive damages on employment discrimination cases.
Jeanne Johnson, 51, was a maintenance repair technician in the Traffic Signals section of the city’s Public Works department from 1999 to 2018. She had several surgeries for work-related carpal tunnel injuries between 2015 and 2017 and was often assigned to unpaid leave.
A doctor cleared Johnson to return to work in October 2017. But her supervisor, Marvin Davis, wouldn’t give her an answer on when or if she would be allowed to resume working, Johnson alleged.
“She wanted to work, she had medical clearance, but the city wouldn’t let her,” Johnson’s attorney Cooper Mach told The Star.
In March 2018, Johnson filed a complaint with the Missouri Human Rights Commission, saying she felt she was being retaliated against for having filed too many workers’ compensation claims related to her injuries.
The city fired Johnson four months later, citing, among other reasons, that she had “not reported to work since 2016.”
“Of course, as I previously have alleged, my doctor released me to return to work — but the city denied my efforts to return,” she wrote in a follow-up complaint with the commission.
Johnson filed suit against the city in December 2018, making four claims: gender discrimination, retaliation, employment disability discrimination and retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim.
Last week the jury found in Johnson’s favor on the latter two claims. She was awarded $994,000 in future economic losses, $81,000 in non-economic damages, $278,000 in back pay, and $500,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $1.8 million.
A 2017 piece of Missouri legislation signed into law by then-Gov Eric Greitens will save the city more than half of those costs. The law sets caps on the amount of damages a plaintiff can obtain against an employer for discrimination claims under the Missouri Human Rights Act. That cap is $500,000 for employers with more than 500 employees, such as the city. (Back pay is not factored into the caps.) The city will likely have to pay attorneys’ fees on top of the $778,000, though the judge has not yet ruled on that.
City spokesman Chris Hernandez said the city’s legal department is considering an appeal. He pointed to arguments the city put to the jury in its closing remarks saying Johnson made conflicting statements to various governmental entities regarding her ability to work. While claiming she was able to work and should have been on the city’s payroll, the city noted, Johnson had also applied for and won federal benefits through Social Security Disability Insurance and testified at a 2021 deposition over her workers’ compensation claims that she had been “100% disabled by 2016,” the city said.
Mach told The Star that the governmental entities all have different standards and requirements for what they consider “disabled.” He also said Johnson filed for Social Security disability prior to being medically cleared.
“She testified repeatedly that she would have immediately dropped her Social Security disability appeal if the city would have let her return to work,” Mach said. “The city terminated her the day before her Social Security disability hearing, so no decision on her Social Security disability had been made by the time the city terminated her employment.”
The director of the city’s Public Works department while Johnson was employed was Sherri McIntyre, who retired in 2020. The position is now held by Michael Shaw.
This story was originally published March 30, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
