A former St Louis police officer has been awarded a $7.5million judgement after claiming in a lawsuit that her superior sexually harassed her and she suffered retaliation for complaining.
Tanisha Ross-Paige, a one-time canine officer, won $300,000 in compensatory damages and $7.2 million in punitive damages from the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners Friday in what has been described as possibly the highest verdict in such a case in Missouri’s history.
However, the jury sided with the police board on a discrimination claim.
‘It's absolutely huge for this type of case,’ said John Eccher, one of the lawyers who represented Ross-Paige.
He said he had asked jurors to send a message with a verdict that was high enough that ‘everyone will take notice that retaliation and discrimination in the workplace ends today.’
Ryan Paulus, another of Ross-Paige's lawyers, estimated that his client would eventually take home about $3million, minus legal fees.
The lawyers added that the legal maximum could grow if the police board appeals the ruling.
Ross-Paige's original lawsuit filed in 2011 claimed that her then-supervisor, Sgt. Steven Gori, created and distributed a mock ‘Wanted’ poster with her picture and comments about her body.
The lawsuit also claimed Gori asked the married Ross-Paige to sit on his lap, take off her bullet-proof vest so that he could ‘see what [she is] working with,’ and invited her to skinny-dip in his hot tub.
According to the complaint cited by the St Louis Post-Dispatch, Gori and then-Lt. Michael Deeba began giving Ross-Paige bad shifts and different performance reviews than her colleagues, and denying her time off for training after she filed a complaint with the department in June 2011.
Ross-Paige's lawsuit alleged that Gori threatened to take her police dog, Duncan, away if she did not agree to date him.
Source-Dailym
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