Jury Awards $75,000 To Corrections Officer After She Was Retaliated Against For Complaining About Harassment
A Mercer County Jury found the New Jersey Department of Corrections retaliated against a female corrections officer for making race and gender harassment complaints and awarded her $75,000. Officer Schiavone was represented by the civil rights law firm of Costello & Mains, LLC. The case was tried by Drake P. Bearden, Jr., a partner at Costello & Mains.
TRENTON, N.J., Feb. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A Mercer County Jury found the New Jersey Department of Corrections retaliated against a female corrections officer for making race and gender harassment complaints and awarded her $75,000.
Senior Corrections Officer, Jennifer Schiavone, filed a lawsuit under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination against the Department of Corrections in 2017. In that lawsuit, she alleged that she made complaints starting in 2016 that she was subjected to a hostile work environment because of her race and gender. She alleged that her supervisors at the Department retaliated against her for making those complaints.
On February 5, 2020, after a three-week trial, a jury found that the Department had in fact retaliated against Officer Schiavone for making the harassment complaints. The jury awarded her $75,000 in emotional distress damages resulting from the retaliation.
Officer Schiavone was represented by the civil rights law firm of Costello & Mains, LLC. The case was tried by Drake P. Bearden, Jr., a partner at Costello & Mains. The case number for this matter was MER-L-2099-17.
"We are proud of this result for Officer Schiavone, who was the victim of cruel and unwarranted retaliation. We hope that a clear and loud message has been sent to all employers, public and private, that retaliation is never acceptable and justice will hold them accountable for their actions," said Kevin Costello, the founding partner of Costello & Mains.
SOURCE Costello & Mains, LLC
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