Lawsuit brought by two city workers is settled

Diana Sahagun

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999 | 1:33 a.m.

Taxpayers from the city of North Las Vegas may not know it, but they just agreed to pay a $99,000 bill to settle a lawsuit against the city by two city workers.

The civil rights lawsuit, filed May 13, 1997, ended with the resignation of two supervisors, a disciplinary hearing for another, and the monetary award.

Due to conditions of the settlement, both parties agreed that it would be kept confidential, city attorney Richard Maurer said.

Therefore, the city approved the settlement without discussion at Wednesday night's City Council meeting.

"The public has a right to know; we're just not explaining the whole thing right there," Maurer said.

The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed by city employees Zachary Allen and John Ohlsson. Allen currently works as an equipment operator in the Street Division, and Ohlsson as a supervisor in the division.

According to court documents, Allen, who is black, alleged he had been discriminated against while working for the city as a maintenance worker in the Street Division beginning in 1994. He claimed he had been "denied training, promotions, and was the subject of racial harassment," by supervisors Bill Waldroop and Ike Crawley. Supervisor Dick Porter was also named in the suit, for not helping end the harassment.

Waldroop and Porter have since resigned.

Ohlsson alleged that while he was a supervisor in the Street Division, he was approached by Allen about the harassment and could not resolve the problem. According to court documents, on Feb. 8, 1996, Allen and Ohlsson went to the city manager with complaints and as a result, Ohlsson alleged he was discriminated against in the form of retaliation and closer supervision.

In the 1990 court case Ellison v. Brady, the 9th Circuit Court determined that an employer is liable when it should have known of a condition and failed to remedy it.

The city insists there were proper procedures in place to remedy the situation, and that the procedures worked. Once an investigation revealed potential problems within the department, the city scheduled disciplinary hearings and two supervisors subsequently resigned.

According to court documents, there were references as early as November 1997 that the case could go to trial. This past May, no agreement was reached during a settlement conference. A July 19 trial date was postponed.

The turning point may have came Aug. 27, when the Leavitt Law Firm, representing Allen and Ohlsson, filed a motion to enforce a settlement agreement reached between the city and the two workers for $99,000.

The settlement was subsequently withdrawn after an attorney representing the city said he had not authorized the settlement. The trial was then set to be heard Monday before Chief U.S. District Judge Howard McKibbon.

"The city's reason for settling was that the numbers were right," Maurer said. "And (the harassment) was something management should not have allowed to go on."

David Schepps, of the Leavitt Law Firm, said he has no idea why the city decided to settle.

But he said his clients are "very happy with the settlement."

Mauer was reluctant at first to talk about the suit because of the confidentiality agreement. After the Sun obtained a copy of the lawsuit from federal court, however, Maurer discussed the issue more openly.

Kent Lauer, executive director of Nevada Press Association, said this issue shows that a law needs to be passed that prohibits government agencies from settling lawsuits secretly.

The city approved the settlement without discussion by putting it on the council's "consent agenda." The consent agenda is made up of general orders of business and items are not discussed separately unless a council member requests it. At Wednesday night's meeting, the consent agenda included more than 20 items, which were all approved at the same time.

"Unfortunately, there is no state law that prohibits government agencies from settling lawsuits secretly," Lauer said. "But there should be such a law because after all, government agencies are using the taxpayer's funds in settlement."