$825,000 Award in Airline Bias Case Is Upheld
A state appeals court upheld a mechanic’s $825,000 damage award Monday for sex discrimination by United Airlines, saying there was evidence of bias in her treatment by male supervisors.
A San Francisco Superior Court jury was entitled to find that the airline discriminated against veteran mechanic Jo’An Kleckner by forcing her off the day shift in 1994 in favor of male mechanics, including one man she had trained, said the 1st District Court of Appeal.
Attorney Kathleen Lucas said Kleckner, who has worked for United at San Francisco International Airport since 1979, was the first woman in the United States to be licensed as a lead radio and electric mechanic for an airline.
Her claim of discrimination was supported by witnesses who said Kleckner was given less latitude and less-experienced work crews than male lead mechanics, the court said. Male supervisors also gave her cleanup chores not normally assigned to lead mechanics, spoke abusively to her, and directed questions to men in her crew rather than to Kleckner, witnesses said.
Evidence of abusive treatment also supported the jury’s finding of a hostile work environment based on Kleckner’s sex, the court said.
The justices quoted one witness, mechanic Ruth Dick, as saying male supervisors were “loud . . . obnoxious . . . brutal” to Kleckner after Kleckner backed another woman’s lawsuit in 1994. The working situation for women at United was “a hellhole . . . like living in prison,” Dick said.
“At one point she was assigned to a hangar where United did not have a ladies’ room,” said Lucas, Kleckner’s lawyer. “When she finally got one, it was vandalized. They put glue in the locks of her desk.”
She said the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had found a hostile working environment for women in the same workplace in the 1993 case of another employee.
Susan Bluer, the airline’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment.
In addition to the damages, all for emotional distress, Superior Court Judge Stuart Pollak awarded Kleckner more than $1.4 million for attorneys’ fees and costs.
The 9-3 verdict, the minimum vote needed in a civil suit, was challenged by United on the grounds that a female juror had allegedly concealed bias toward men. The juror said during pretrial questioning that she could be fair despite the fact that her son had complained of sex discrimination on the job and her daughter had complained of sexual harassment.
During deliberations, she read a statement to the other jurors describing what she believed to be the differences between men, who were aggressive and indifferent to others’ pain, and women, who were nurturing and supportive. She explained later that she had written her views after hearing other jurors’ ideas, and denied any bias.
“Taken in context, [the juror’s] statement reflects not so much a bias held before trial as a reaction to the evidence, which was colored by her own life experience just as all jurors’ reactions are,” said Justice Joanne Parilli in the 3-0 appeals court ruling.
