Court upholds damages decision

TROY, N.Y. » An appeals court has held up the damages awarded to a former county jail employee who was subjected to harassment by co-workers.

The decision was issued Aug. 9 by the State of New York Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Judicial Department.

In 2013, Lora AbbottSeabury, was awarded damages nearing $ 3 million. Part of that included what would have been her pension. Courts had found Abbott- Seabury, who’d been at the department 17 years, was subjected to illegal discriminatory conduct of a hostile work environment.

According to t he court decision, in September 2010, AbbottSeabury filed a complaint with the State Division of Human Rights ( SDHR) saying she’d been harrassed, among other things, by her male co-worker. A hearing was held after which an Administrative Law Judge recommended Abbott- Seabury be paid by the Rensselaer County Sherif f ’ s Department $ 450,000 in economic damages, $ 300,000 in noneconomic damages, and “be made whole” in regards to her pension. The Commissioner of Human Rights lowered the economic damages to $ 315,000, but otherwise went with the recommendation.

After that, according to the court, the Sheriff’s Department filed to have the Human Rights Commissioner’s decision annulled. Meanwhile, Abbott- Seabury filed to have the amount modified and the final total confirmed.

The court confirmed that Abbott- Seabury had been subjected to sexual harassment, modified the damages, then determined that the Commissioner of Human rights had abused their discretion when telling the Sheriff’s Department to “seek an actual pension” for Abbott- Seabury. The court sent the matter to the State Division of Human Rights to determine what damages Abbott- Seabury had sustained to her pension.

Both sides submitted information on what they believed AbbottSeabury was owed.

In November 2015 the Commissioner of Human Rights ordered the Sheriff’s Department to pay $809,507 to AbbottSeabury to make up for the loss to her pension caused by the discriminatory actions.

In January 2017, the Sherif f ’ s Department asked for an annulment on the grounds that proper evidence procedures hadn’t been followed. The essential claim was that new evidence regarding damages was allowed in after the initial hearing.

The court disagreed, saying the Sheriff’s Department had “mischaracterized” its decision to remit. It found several other of the Sheriff’s Department’s claims to be without merit.