Lawyer With HIV Settles Suit Against Firm
In a case similar to the movie “Philadelphia,” an attorney who has the AIDS virus settled his discrimination lawsuit Monday.
The lawyer, known only as Scott Doe, got hugs and kisses from jurors after the settlement was announced. All sides agreed not to reveal the details.
“I am anxious to get on with my life and the practice of law,” he said. Doe’s federal lawsuit said he was dismissed from the firm Kohn, Nast & Graf in March, 1993, after his boss learned that he had HIV.
The firm had argued that “Scott Doe” failed to live up to his potential.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission joined in the suit. Carmen Matos, the agency’s lawyer, said the firm agreed not to engage in “any employment practices which constitute unlawful disability-based discrimination.”
The case resembled the plot of “Philadelphia,” in which a lawyer with AIDS was fired and won a settlement. Work on the film was already in progress when the lawyer in the real case was fired.
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