Attorney tells court DeMent erred in harassment ruling
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STAN BAILEY News staff writer MONTGOMERY - A federal judge erred last year when he dismissed a sexual harassment and discrimination suit filed by two former employees of the state Court of Criminal Appeals, their attorney told a federal appeals panel Wednesday. The suit by former court employees Jackie Laurie and Barbara Lindsey said former Judge Sam Taylor repeatedly harassed them by hugging them, telling dirty jokes and talking about the sexual prowess of men on the court. U.S. District Judge Ira DeMent ruled that Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to employers with 15 or more employees but not to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, which by his count has 13 employees. "We think the court (DeMent) erred in deciding the Court of Criminal Appeals employs fewer than 15 persons," said Mark Montiel, attorney for the two women, in arguments before U.S. Circuit Judges Ed Carnes and Stanley Marcus and U.S. District Judge Robert B. Propst, sitting as a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alice Ann Byrne, attorney for the state appeals court, said DeMent correctly calculated the number of employees of the court and properly dismissed the two women's complaint. Court records show that about three dozen people work for the Court of Criminal Appeals, but DeMent said elected judges and employees who answer directly to individual judges - such as staff attorneys, junior staff attorneys and law clerks - don't count as employees of the full court. Montiel conceded that his clients cannot sue Taylor individually under the Civil Rights Act, but he said DeMent should have allowed him to allege that Taylor violated their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection of the law by causing them to work in a sexually hostile work place. Jay Stover, attorney for Taylor, said DeMent properly refused to allow Montiel to amend his complaint because it was filed too late. Montiel, he said, "didn't act with due diligence in this case." Taylor, who denied the women's accusations, retired in January 1997 after 14 years on the Court of Criminal Appeals, six as its presiding judge. © The Birmingham News. |
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