Justices Turn Down Christine Craft’s Bid for Damages
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WASHINGTON — Christine Craft, the television newscaster who sued her former employer over alleged sex bias and fraud, today lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to have a $325,000 jury award reinstated.
The justices, over a single dissenting vote by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, let stand a federal appeals court ruling that wiped out Craft’s legal victory.
Craft, 41, sued station KMBC-TV in Kansas City in 1983, charging that she was demoted from her job as a news anchor after being told she was “too old, too unattractive and not deferential enough to men.”
A federal jury in Kansas City awarded Craft $500,000 against her former employer, Metromedia Inc., in 1983. But a federal judge threw out the verdict. After a second trial, a federal jury in Joplin, Mo., ordered Metromedia to pay Craft $325,000 in damages. But the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that award last June 28.
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