Court upholds bias suit judgment

The Washington Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a Spokane County jury’s $4 million award to a woman who said she was subjected to gender discrimination as a manager for ABM Janitorial Services.

The verdict in May 2003, after a six-week trial, was the largest employment discrimination compensatory award in Washington, according to Jury Verdicts Northwest, an organization that tracks settlements and verdicts in the Northwest.

Not only was the award to Cheryl Forbes proper, but she is entitled to additional compensation for work performed by her attorney, Mary Schultz, the Court of Appeals ruled. The extra attorney fees, to be determined by an appellate court commissioner, are for post-trial work, including the cost of fighting ABM’s appeal.

The Court of Appeals rejected all of ABM’s claims that Superior Court Judge Jerome Leveque erred in his handling of trial evidence, but directed him to recalculate the interest Forbes is to receive on a $409,939 award intended to compensate her for taxes she will have to pay on the judgment itself. A change in state law allows the interest rate to be reduced from 12 to 3.2 percent.

Leveque may not reduce the tax-compensation award itself, as ABM requested, the Court of Appeals ruled.

Forbes managed ABM Janitorial Service’s Spokane office from 1988 to 1997. The San Francisco-based company is a subsidiary of ABM Industries Inc., a multibillion-dollar corporation that provides janitorial, parking, engineering, security and other services for thousands of customers in hundreds of cities across the country.

Trial testimony indicated Forbes increased the Spokane office’s profits 31 percent in her first year and that in subsequent years the company recognized her as one of its top managers nationwide. Testimony also indicated that, when she expressed interest in a promotion to Seattle and didn’t get it, the company’s senior regional vice president told her, “Seattle wasn’t ready for a woman manager,” the Court of Appeals noted.

The jury concluded that ABM discriminated against Forbes, starting in January 1996, and that it retaliated for her complaints, creating a hostile work environment that caused her to leave her job in 1999. Jurors awarded Forbes $614,478 for wages lost through the discrimination, more than $1.7 million for future wages she was denied, and $1.6 million for emotional distress.