Gainey Law, PLLC Seattle Employment Law Attorney

  Jury Awards $1 Million to Woman Who Was Told, ‘I Don’t Serve Black People’ Rose Wakefield was ignored by an attendant at a gas station in Beaverton, Ore., near Portland, as white customers who pulled in after her were served first, according to the lawsuit. By  McKenna Oxenden Jan. 28, 2023 A woman in Oregon was awarded $1 million in damages this week after a jury found that she was discriminated against when a gas station attendant told her he didn’t “serve Black people.” The decision by the jury in Multnomah County, which came after a four-day civil trial, included $550,000 in punitive damages. Greg Kafoury, a lawyer for Rose Wakefield, the plaintiff, said his client felt “vindicated” and was looking forward to putting this case behind her. “This company deserved to be publicly humiliated just as they had publicly humiliated my client by calling her a liar in court for four days when she had been telling the truth,” Mr. Kafoury said in an interview on Saturday.

A 2017 - 2019 (published in March 2021) study found a "wide variation in serious disciplinary actions taken per 1,000 physicians across states and the District of Columbia, [making] it is clear that many, if not most, state medical boards are doing a dangerously lax job in enforcing their states’ medical practice acts .  "There is no evidence that the observed differences in state disciplinary action rates can be explained by differences in the competence or conduct of the physicians practicing in the various states and, therefore, must be related to differences in how well or poorly the licensing boards adhere to their legal responsibility to protect the public from incompetent or miscreant licensees." Low rates of serious disciplinary actions suggest that medical boards are not adequately taking actions to discipline physicians responsible for negligent medical care or whose behavior is unacceptably dangerous to patients.  See the study   Washington State ranked 29th....

Gainey Law, PLLC currently represents client(s) related to the wrongful acts of Dr. Douglas Robinson and the Washington State entities that enabled his bizarre and harmful behavior for decades. Despite numerous complaints, the Department of Labor and Industry did nothing to protect Washington workers against Dr. Douglas one of LNI’s highest paid medical examiners. If you received a forced medical exam (IME, independent medical exam) from Dr. Robinson we want to here from you. Please call our office at 206-354-4211.  Despite serious complaints against this doctor dating back years, neither the Department of Labor and Industry nor the Washington State Medical Commission has taken any action agaisnt this doctor.  King 5  Coverage State Paid Psychiatrist Never Held Accountable.  Prior Complaints to the Department of Labor and Industry against LNI IME doctor, Douglas P. Robinson   Date Logged / IME Date Reported by SI/SF Complaint Quality Concern / Concern ...

  M ore than 150 years after slaves were freed in the U.S., voters in five states will soon decide whether to close loopholes that led to the proliferation of a different form of slavery — forced labor by people convicted of certain crimes. None of the proposals would force immediate changes inside the states’ prisons, though they could lead to legal challenges related to how they use prison labor, a lasting imprint of slavery’s legacy on the entire United States. The effort is part of  a national push  to amend the  13th Amendment  to the U.S. Constitution that banned enslavement or involuntary servitude except as a form of criminal punishment. That exception has long permitted the exploitation of labor by convicted felons. “The idea that you could ever finish the sentence ‘slavery’s okay when ... ' has to rip out your soul, and I think it’s what makes this a fight that ignores political lines and brings us together, because it feels so clear,” said Bianca Tyle...

       If you are someone who has suffered humiliation through discrimination or sexual harassment at work, you may need more than a path to justice, you may also need a path to healing. A way to reset your fight or flight neurological response which is likely working overtime in response to the trauma you suffered. It is not healthy to allow this system to remain revved up for extended periods of time. It can lead you to anxiety, depression, and exhaustion making reclaiming your life difficult even if you succeed in litigation.       Neglecting how workplace (or personal) trauma is effecting you while at the same time enduring the stressors of litigation is a recipe for failure - whether you win your lawsuit or not. Our civil legal system allows for little outside of the recovery of money damages. Likely the wrong-doer will not be fired, you definitely will not receive an apology or a glowing letter of recommendation admitting that every nasty th...

 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released data confirming what plaintiff's employment attorneys (and Human resources professionals) already knew: that not only is sexual harassment targeting women more prevalent in the workplace so are all forms of discrimination and harassment and retaliation. ( read the full EEOC report here ) Of the nearly 30,000 complaints filed between 2018 and 2021, 78.2% of complaints  of sexual harassment were reported by women, and women made of 62% of the 98,000 total harassments charges alleging any basis (e.g. race, national origin). Keep in mind the numbers are much more sobering as 87% of sexual harassment victims still do not report the sexual harassment they suffer in the workplace for fear of retaliation. This number is down only a few percentage points since 2016.      The numbers on the lack of reporting of sexual harassment was originally published in a 2016 EEOC report. Now updated to focus on charges ...

Under Title VII it is best practice for, "an employer should proceed on the assumption that a request for  religious accommodation is based on sincerely held religious beliefs, practices or observances," the EEOC said in its updated guidance. "However, if an employer has an objective basis for questioning either the religious nature or the sincerity of a particular belief, the employer would be justified in making a limited factual inquiry and seeking additional supporting information." The EEOC added, "An employee who fails to cooperate with an employer's reasonable requests for verification of the sincerity or religious nature of a professed belief, practice or observance risks losing any subsequent claim that the employer improperly denied an accommodation." The EEOC has identified the following factors that might undermine the credibility of an employee's claim: The employee has acted inconsistently with the professed belief. However, the EEOC ...