Federal law may allow a $3.5 million discrimination lawsuit against the security contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to continue even after a federal judge found the statute of limitations had passed for the case, according to newly hired legal counsel for the plaintiff.
Marcialena Brown, an African-American woman, did not realize she had been subjected to racial discrimination by Centerra-SRS until after the statute of limitations had expired, her lawyer said in a Feb. 12 filing. Also, because Brown was representing herself when she filed suit on July 22, 2019, Brown was not privy to the federal law that could help her in the case, according to the objection.
Columbia, S.C., attorney Katherine Myers filed the document in response to a Jan. 29 report from U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett that upholds the statute of limitations in the case.
Brown is suing Centerra, along with employees Raymond Smith and Jerry Stevenson, saying she was unfairly fired in May 2015 for accidentally leaving her M4 rifle unattended in a women’s bathroom on site for five minutes. In November 2018, Brown learned a white female employee had kept her job after accidentally leaving her gun in a bathroom unattended two months earlier. The employee was only issued a warning, according to her complaint.
Brown filed the suit nine months later, arguing she received a harsher punishment than the white employee even though they made the same error. The case is being heard by Judge Sherri Lydon in U.S. District Court in South Carolina.
Brown is seeking $3 million in compensatory damages, including for unfair dismissal, distress, and mental suffering. She also requested $500,000 in punitive damages.
Centerra denied that discrimination played a role in either decision, and added two more points: that the statute of limitations had run out on Brown’s claims, and that only employers can be sued in a case involving Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against employees based on sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. The company says Brown’s complaint is invalid because she is also suing two employees.
Lydon requested U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett’s opinion in the Title VII case. Seeking a magistrate opinion is common with such cases.
Gossett fully sided with Centerra her Jan. 29 report and recommendation. She said a Title VII lawsuit must be filed within 300 days of the alleged action, and that Title VII doesn’t cover individual liability.
The magistrate recommended that Childs grant Centerra’s motion that specific claims be removed from the lawsuit.
Myers wrote in last week’s objection that the case should continue due to equitable tolling, a legal principle in federal law that says the statute of limitations will not bar a claim if the plaintiff did not discover the injury until after the period had expired. “Plaintiff objects that the Report and Recommendation relies upon a lack of information regarding her efforts in pursuing her first complaint, which is not at issue here, to bar her from equitable tolling for her current claim,” according to the attorney.
Centerra-SRS has not yet issued a response. A subsidiary of Florida-based Centerra, the company provides security support services for the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near Aiken, S.C. Centerra’s services include access control, property protection, law enforcement, criminal investigations, and traffic control.
The company’s 10-year, $990 million contract expired on Oct. 7, 2019. Three days prior, it inked a four-month, $35.8 million extension, keeping the company on the job through Feb. 7, 2020. Centerra could remain at SRS another eight months past the extension, via two additional four-month options. It is unclear if the value of those options is the same as the $35.8 million for the first extension. The company has confirmed it bid on the follow-on contract for Savannah River Site security.
