Trial in in a longstanding discrimination case against the liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is set to begin Sept. 23, according to a notice released last week.
Jury selection is slated for Aug. 5 in U.S. District Court for South Carolina.
The legal team for Adrienne Saulsberry, a black woman who was formerly a first-line manager with Savannah River Remediation (SRR), has made two main points in the suit that they are likely to re-emphasize at trial, which will be held in Columbia, S.C., about 70 miles from the Savannah River Site.
First, they have argued the was terminated in September 2013 for reporting a white co-worker after he made racially insensitive comments. Second, Saulsberry’s attorneys are expected to try to convince the jury she was not considered for a similar position eight months after her firing because SRR was still blackballing her from the previous incident.
Saulsberry sued SRR in August 2016. She is seeking reinstatement of employment, back pay, and payment of her legal fees by the contractor.
Savannah River Remediation is expected to deny all of the allegations, maintaining its stance that it used work performance scores to decide who it would terminate during a reduction in workforce, which was part of DOE’s restructuring plan to address financial concerns. The contractor has said it was under no obligation to consider rehiring Saulsberry, and that the decision to hire others was not based on race.
Summaries of these arguments, or trial briefs, should be delivered to U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs a week before jury selection, according to the notice.
Discrimination cases against SRR rarely make it to trial. At least two past cases against the contractor were dismissed, due to insufficient evidence to back the discrimination claims, according to federal court records.
In this case, however, Saulsberry received support from U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett in her reports and recommendations submitted in April. Magistrate judges are regularly asked to offer an opinion on civil suits to aid the District Court judge in making a ruling
In her reports, Gossett said there was no concrete proof that Saulsberry’s initial termination was racially motivated. However, she believed racial bias could have played a role in Saulsberry not being considered for one of the two first line manager jobs that opened up after her termination.
Savannah River Remediation is a partnership of AECOM, Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWX Technologies. Since its original eight-year, $5 billion deal ended in June 2017, SRR’s contract has been extended four times. The Energy Department announced in April that SRR will stay on the job for another 18 months, through September 30, 2020. The new deal is worth roughly $750 million.
