Ex-IP worker wins discrimination suit

BANGOR – A federal jury Friday awarded a former employee of International Paper Co.’s Bucksport mill $3 million in damages – $1 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages – in his discrimination suit against the firm.

The jury of six men and two women found that the company discriminated against Gary Webber, 50, of Trenton on the basis of his disability due to a work-related injury. He was laid off in June 2001 as part of a companywide work-force reduction.

The jury deliberated about three hours before rendering its verdict in the three-day trial in U.S. District Court.

A federal damage cap is expected to reduce the award to $300,000 at a hearing scheduled for January before U.S. District Court Judge George Singal, who presided at the trial. Federal law prohibits juries from being informed of damage caps during trials.

Webber, who worked at the mill for 18 years, also is entitled to back and future pay, pre-judgment interest on the award and attorney fees. His attorney, A.J. Greif of Bangor, said Friday that he anticipated his client would receive about $500,000.

A project engineer, Webber was injured in 1997 while working as a finishing-shipping supervisor. He fell from a paper roll and injured his knee, according to court documents. When he returned to work, Webber received certain accommodations, including being permitted to work from home with a laptop computer, the rearrangement of his duties to minimize the need to walk and climb stairs at the mill and an office on the first floor rather than the third-floor engineering department.

In July 2000, IP installed a stairway lift chair to assist Webber in getting to the engineering department and to reduce the number of stairs he had to climb. Two of his supervisors referred to the lift as a “Costanza chair,” alluding to an episode of “Seinfeld,” where the character George Costanza faked a disability.

Webber underwent total knee replacement surgery in February 2001. He returned to work about three months later, but was restricted to walking or standing no more than 50 percent of the time. In May, his physician ordered him to work only four hours a day, four days per week.

The following month, IP sought to reduce 3,000 positions companywide, including eight at the Bucksport mill. According to court documents, Mill Manager Fred Oettinger consulted with the mill’s operations and human resource managers, along with officials in IP’s Memphis office, before deciding which employees to let go.

Webber’s employment at IP was terminated June 25, 2001. In a meeting that day with Oettinger, Webber asked if he could be moved to the vacant position of SQA coordinator in quality control. He was told that position was open but was not being filled. That day, he was escorted from the premises and told that he would never work for the company again, Greif said in his opening statement.

In August 2001, Webber filed a discrimination complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission. Two months later, he was offered the SQA coordinator job. Webber turned it down, according to Greif, because he was concerned he was being set up to be fired again.

IP’s attorney Jonathan Harmon of Richmond, Va., argued that Webber was laid off because he was the only project engineer in the department without an engineering degree. In his closing, Harmon said that the company did not discriminate against Webber based on his disability but accommodated him as the law required. He also told the jury that it was “unreasonable” of Webber to refuse the offer to return to the mill.

Greif told the jury that Webber was never told he needed to get an engineering degree and that he was offered the SQA coordinator job in October 2001 only after he filed his MHRC complaint. He also pointed out that salaried employees were moved to departments not affected by the layoffs to protect their positions.

Webber’s attorney said that an unwritten policy had evolved at the mill that said salaried employees like Webber were not to get hurt on the job and mill managers were concerned that he would be reinjured and the mill would not achieve its goal of 1 million injury-free hours.

“When a herd of caribou is attacked by wolves, who is left behind? The old and the disabled,” said Greif in his closing argument. “You are entitled to find that when the wolves from Memphis fly in, the disabled are left behind.”

Harmon refused Friday to comment on the jury’s verdict or whether the company planned to file an appeal in the case.