The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is asking a federal judge to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee.
In a Sept. 14 motion for summary judgment, Savannah River Remediation (SRR) said Adrienne Saulsberry was terminated for legitimate reasons. The contractor said its fact finding proves the case should not go to trial.
“SRR is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because no evidence exists supporting Saulsberry’s allegations of race discrimination,” the SRR legal team wrote in the motion to U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs. “On the contrary, the undisputed material facts establish that SRR terminated Saulsberry as part of a legitimate reduction in force.”
Savannah River Remediation is a partnership of AECOM, Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWX Technologies. Saulsberry, an African-American woman who worked as a radiological first-line manager, filed suit against the venture in August 2016. She alleged she was terminated in September 2013 after confirming to management in spring of that year that a white employee had made racially motivated comments. According to her Saulsberry, the employee she spoke out against was a friend of one of her superiors.
She is seeking reinstatement, back pay, and payment of her legal fees by SRR.
In its motion, SRR reinforced its stance that Saulsberry’s departure was part of a planned reduction in force (RIF). In 2013, the contractor learned that annual funding to support its missions would drop by $100 million and was “forced” to lay off 465 employees, according to the motion.
As a result, SRR developed a selection process based on past and current performance. After ranking each employee and assessing need, the contractor determined it had to let go of four of its 33 radiological first-line managers. Saulsberry was the only black employee who was terminated; the other three were white.
Saulsberry filed an internal complaint saying race played a factor in the decision. When she applied for another position at SRR nine months later, she said the same when she was not hired. But SRR said in the motion that the first-line manager position she applied for was for the tank farms and not the waste treatment facilities where she had previously worked.
All of these factors demonstrate Saulsberry has no grounds to allege race played a factor in her termination, according to SRR. “So long as SRR applied its (workforce reduction) criteria in a neutral manner, as it did, and Saulsberry can present no evidence linking her race to the decision to select her for termination, then this is precisely the type of business decisions that courts have stated that they will not second-guess,” the legal team wrote.
There is no timetable for a ruling from Childs. No date has been set for the trial.
