Fulton County ordered to pay $25 million in librarian bias suit

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Posted 10:48AM on Thursday, January 17, 2002

ATLANTA - Fulton County must pay almost $25 million for discriminating against eight white librarians, a federal jury ruled. Wednesday's judgment is the fourth against Fulton County for discrimination against white employees or vendors. County Attorney O.V. Brantley said she believes the $25 million is the largest ever awarded in a personnel case involving a metro Atlanta government. The largest previous judgment against the county in a reverse discrimination lawsuit was for about $3 million, awarded to three employees, she said. The librarians said they were demoted from the county's central branch to smaller branch libraries because of an effort to reduce the number of whites working downtown. During closing arguments, the librarians' lawyer quoted a board member as saying, ``There are too many white managers'' at the downtown branch. Brantley said the county will appeal the award, which she said ``bears no relationship to the evidence presented in court.'' It includes $16 million in punitive damages, divided among eight plaintiffs. ``This is off the charts and, I think, clearly excessive for employees who were only transferred,'' said Brantley. ``I am greatly disturbed and concerned at the outcome of this case, not only because of the enormity of the judgment, but because this is at least the fourth reverse discrimination case in recent memory that Fulton County has lost, costing the taxpayers literally tens of millions of dollars,'' Fulton County Commission Chairman Mike Kenn said. The forewoman of the eight-member jury said the library officials made a decision based on race. ``I do not think that any of the defendants are racists, but this decision was based on race,'' said Phylis Hughes. The jurors, made up of four men and four women, none of them black, ruled the women were treated differently from other library system employees because of their race. The jury determined the library system itself was not liable because there are no race-based policies or procedures, Hughes said.