COUNSEL IN LANDMARK EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION CLASS ACTION AGAINST USIA AND VOICE OF AMERICA WIN 2000 TRIAL LAWYER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Bruce Fredrickson and Co-Counsel Fought Gender Discrimination for 23 Years

Bruce A. Fredrickson, Susan L. Brackshaw, Linda M. Correia, Jonathan C. Puth and Jeffrey E. Fallon, all of Webster, Fredrickson & Brackshaw in Washington, D.C., were awarded the 2000 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award last night for their extraordinary work in Hartman v. Albright, the landmark gender discrimination class action against the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and its broadcasting arm, the Voice of America. The nationally prestigious award is given annually by The Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ) Foundation to the lawyer(s) who made the greatest contribution to the public interest by trying or settling a precedent-setting case.

"These attorneys exemplify how trial lawyers use their skills and determination to create a more just society," said outgoing TLPJ Foundation President Nicole Schultheis of Baltimore’s Schultheis & Walton. "They serve as inspiring models for us all."

Fredrickson and his team won a record-breaking $508 million settlement against the federal government – the largest award ever in an employment discrimination case – on behalf of a class of 1,100 women who were denied jobs and promotions at USIA and the Voice of America because of their gender. Their Herculean legal effort spanned 23 years.

The case began in 1977, after Carolee Brady Hartman applied for a job as a USIA magazine editor, only to be told that managers were seeking a man. Hartman’s complaint ballooned into a class action lawsuit on behalf of all of the women who were denied employment in high-paying professional jobs in favor of less qualified men, had their scores changed on in-house tests if they had scored higher than male applicants, and/or were told a variety of lies, including that their applications had been lost.

Fredrickson had practiced only two months when he took this case. In 1979, after Hartman lost her request for class certification and the firm Fredrickson worked at declined to spend more on what they considered a futile appeal, he decided to handle the suit on his own time at night, on weekends and during "vacation." He obtained a reversal on appeal, took the case to the new firm he started, and in 1984 obtained class certification and won the liability phase of the trial.

Fredrickson’s team prevailed in 46 of 48 individual damages hearings, winning $22.7 million in back pay over and above the $508 million settlement for the class. Each of the 1,100 class members will receive $460,000 from the settlement.

Also at The TLPJ Foundation’s annual awards ceremony, the 2000 Public Justice Achievement Award was presented to Joe Lovett of Mountain State Justice in Charleston, Patrick C. McGinley and Suzanne M. Weise, both of Morgantown, West Virginia, and TLPJ Environmental Enforcement Director Jim Hecker for their dedicated work on Bragg v. Robertson, which effectively stopped the West Virginia coal industry’s practice of mountaintop removal mining.

The other finalists for the 2000 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award were also honored for their achievements:

Joseph W. Cotchett, Frank M. Pitre, and Steven N. Williams of Cotchett, Pitre & Simon in Burlingame, California, Barry G. West of Gaims, Weil, West & Epstein in Los Angeles, California, and Norma Garcia of Consumers Union in San Francisco, California, successfully defended Consumers Union in two separate multi-million dollar defamation suits – Isuzu Motors Ltd. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. and Suzuki Motors Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. – brought to muzzle criticism of the Isuzu Trooper and the Suzuki Samurai published in Consumer Reports.

Elizabeth M. Fink of Brooklyn, New York, Michael E. Deutsch of the People’s Law Office in Chicago, Illinois, Dennis Cunningham of San Francisco, California, Joseph J. Heath of Syracuse, New York, Daniel Meyers of New York, New York, and Ellen M. Yacknin of the Greater Upstate Law Project in Rochester, New York, won an $8 million settlement for the victims of the 1971 Attica prison uprising in New York after a 20-year legal battle in Al-Jundi v. Mancusi, et al.

Don C. Keenan of Atlanta, Georgia, forced Georgia to enact sweeping reforms to its child protection system by suing the state’s child welfare agency in Peterson v. Georgia State Dep’t of Human Resources, et al., on behalf of a six year-old boy who was abused and ultimately murdered by members of his foster family.

Brian J. Panish and Christine Spagnoli of Greene, Broillet, Taylor, Wheeler & Panish in Santa Monica, California, exposed corporate greed and won over $1 billion in punitive damages in Anderson v. General Motors Corp. for several people who were severely burned when the gas tank of a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu exploded in a rear-end collision.

Joseph A. Power, Jr. of Power, Rogers & Smith in Chicago, Illinois, won a $100 million settlement in Willis v. Transamerica Leasing, Inc., et al., for the parents of six children killed after their minivan ran over a taillight assembly that had fallen off a truck and, in the process, exposed a truck license-selling bribery scheme that has already led to 25 federal convictions.

Edward M. Ricci and Theodore J. Leopold of Ricci, Hubbard, Leopold, Frankel & Farmer in West Palm Beach, Florida, exposed widespread fraud and won a $78.5 million punitive damages award in Chipps v. Humana Health Insurance Company of Florida, Inc., on behalf of a child with cerebral palsy whose HMO wrongfully terminated her insurance benefits.

Melvyn I. Weiss of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP in New York, New York, Robert A. Swift of Kohn, Swift & Graf, P.C. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Morris A. Ratner of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP in San Francisco, California, Michael Hausfeld of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, P.L.L.C. in Washington, D.C., and Professor Burt Neuborne of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School in New York, New York, obtained an unprecedented settlement in In re Holocaust Era German Industry, Banking and Insurance Litigation, establishing a $5.1 billion fund to compensate a worldwide class of approximately 1.5 million Holocaust survivors who were slave or forced laborers during the Nazi regime.

Longer descriptions of the finalists’ cases are available on TLPJ’s web site at www.tlpj.org. The outstanding work of the winners and all of the finalists is chronicled in Trial Lawyers Doing Public Justice, published by The TLPJ Foundation. Contact TLPJ Communications Director Jonathan Hutson for copies.

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Trial Lawyers for Public Justice is the only national public interest law firm dedicated to using trial lawyers’ skills and resources to advance the public good. Founded in 1982, TLPJ utilizes a nationwide network of more than 2,700 trial lawyers to pursue precedent-setting and socially significant litigation. It has a wide-ranging litigation docket in the areas of civil rights and liberties, consumer rights, worker safety, toxic torts, environmental protection, and access to the courts. TLPJ is the principal project of The TLPJ Foundation, a not-for-profit membership organization. It has offices in Washington, DC, and Oakland, CA. The TLPJ web site address is www.tlpj.org.