Lesbian employee wins discrimination suit

A Buchanan County jury found the Missouri Department of Corrections liable for a total of $275,000 after failing to address coworkers who allegedly discriminated against a lesbian employee.

Rachel Rutter of the Rutter Law Firm represented plaintiff Jean Finney. Rutter, whom Missouri Lawyers Weekly has named a 2022 Influential Lawyer as a result of the case, said she relied on recent case law that includes sexual orientation discrimination under gender stereotyping because non-heterosexual orientations fall outside of gender stereotypes.

The plaintiff faced a jury pool who made statements including, “Being gay is a sin just like stealing is a sin.”

“We asked the jury pool who agreed with that statement,” Rutter said. “You should have seen the number of hands that popped up.”

The attorney general’s office represented the DOC and Rutter said they claimed there was no evidence of discrimination but rather the private matter of a “lover’s triangle.” Upon cross examination of Finney, they only asked between 2-3 questions, including her bill collection history.

“I couldn’t tell if they thought that they were so confident where they sat with the jury that they didn’t need to ask questions and really attack her,” Rutter said. “But they were soft and they were weak on her.”

According to court documents, beginning in 2008, fellow corrections officer Jon Colborn consistently attempted to interfere with Finney’s work by not sharing necessary information between shifts, not being present to give her keys, throwing keys at her, ignoring her when she communicated critical information and telling subordinates key information before telling her.

In 2011, Finney began dating Colborn’s ex-wife, who Rutter said is a now-retired warden. The initial complaint stated that Colborn began sending the ex-wife derogatory messages about Finney, including that he would try to take Finney’s job, house and children away, and said he would convince others to file complaints about Finney. In 2016, five months after the DOC promoted Finney over Colborn, he filed a grievance with their supervisor and HR and sent derogatory texts to the ex-wife about a woman who was interviewed during an investigation regarding his complaint, claiming that Finney was having an affair with the woman.

According to the initial complaint, Colborn allegedly made false complaints against Finney multiple times over some 11 years that the human resource department investigated while ignoring many of Finney’s complaints, and while Colborn also harassed and discriminated against other lesbian employees.

Colborn was not the only one in the office making Finney’s job difficult, based on the initial complaint. Finney’s work badge was stolen out of her locker at least once a week during a period of six months in 2016, and she discovered multiple times that her phone number had been manually crossed out on the shared work office’s institutional phone list. When a supervisor warned the office of a camera installed in the office to prevent this from continuing, Finney’s coworkers and subordinates were openly angry.

The behavior continued into 2018, when Finney was being considered for another promotion. The same day her employer was served with her lawsuit, she was notified that she was passed over for a position. A man, previously reported for unprofessionalism with a coworker in front of subordinates, accepted the role, while supervisors did not discipline any of the employees implicated in her initial lawsuit.

While allegations against two individual supervisors were dropped in 2019, the claim against the DOC prevailed.

The DOC’s pre-trial offer included a stipulation that Rutter said has become a pattern for the DOC in the last few years. If Finney had accepted, she wouldn’t be allowed to re-apply anywhere with the DOC again. This prevented her from being able to retire with a pension in ten years.

During deliberation, the jury asked for Finney’s attorney fees and if she had therapy costs as a result of the discrimination, neither of which were available.

“It was clear they wanted to pay her,” Rutter said.

Following the trial, Finney also was awarded more than $500,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, which were calculated with a 1.5 multiplier. 

The state has appealed the verdict. 

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