The liquid waste management contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will pay more than $267,000 to a former employee in attorney’s fees, after already paying nearly $1.8 million in her discrimination lawsuit.
Savannah River Remediation (SRR) did not file any objections or responses to Adrienne Saulsberry’s Feb. 6 motion for payment of attorney’s fees in her August 2016 lawsuit in U.S. District Court for South Carolina. That, plus the fact that she was within legal standing to have the fees covered, moved District Judge J. Michelle Childs to grant Saulsberry’s motion on March 2.
Saulsberry will receive $267,266.95 in attorney’s fees, and another $218.20 in litigation expenses. Savannah River Remediation is obligated to pay the money by April 1, which is 30 days from the date of the order.
For 23 years, Saulsberry, an African-American woman, worked at the 310-square-mile DOE facility near Aiken, S.C. She was serving as a first-line manager for SRR in 2013 when she was let go. Her lawsuit contended she was wrongfully included in a DOE-mandated workforce reduction of nearly 500 employees after reporting to SRR management a white co-worker who had made racially insensitive comments. She also claimed the contractor refused to hire her for either of two first-line manager jobs the year after her termination and instead gave the jobs to less-qualified white employees.
Savannah River Remediation denied both claims, saying its hiring and workforce reduction processes were nondiscriminatory.
In September 2019, a jury ruled in favor of paying Saulsberry $1.475 million on the grounds that the contractor withheld employment even though she engaged in protected activity. Childs upheld that verdict. Then, on Jan. 17, Childs partially ruled in favor of Saulsberry’s Oct. 25 request for equitable relief, awarding her another $295,225.
Savannah River Remediation is a partnership of Amentum (formerly AECOM Management Services), Bechtel National, Jacobs Engineering Group, and BWX Technologies. Since its original award ended in June 2017, SRR’s contract has been extended four times, including the 18-month extension signed in April that keeps the company on the job through September 30, 2020. The latest contract is worth $750 million.
