PORTLAND, Maine — The city of Westbrook and two police officers have agreed to settle the women’s gender discrimination lawsuit filed last year.
A notice of the $100,000 settlement that awards $30,000 to each officer and $40,000 to pay their legal fees, was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
Officers Sandy Mailman and Melissa May agreed to the settlement because the culture in department has improved since the town hired a woman police chief, according to their lawyer.
“The moving force behind this agreement is addressing prior discriminatory conduct toward female officers in the Westbrook Police Department,” the officers’ attorney, Rebecca Webber of Auburn, said Thursday in an email. “Due to the pressure exerted by this litigation and the courage of these two officers, as well as the new leadership and change in the form of Chief Janine Roberts, the department has made enormous steps forward. The goal of the agreement was to keep the momentum moving toward the elimination of gender inequity in any form in the department.”
The women sued the city Dec. 2, 2015, in Cumberland County Superior Court alleging that the former chief allowed a hostile work environment to exist that led to them being sexually harassed. The women also claimed that their harassment complaints were not dealt with properly by supervisors.
“The city agreed to pay $30,000 to each of the two plaintiff officers and $40,000 to pay attorney’s fees,” the city’s attorney, Edward R. Benjamin Jr. of Portland, said Thursday in an email. “While a number of the allegations the plaintiffs made were vehemently denied by the city, there was at least one incident that was a precipitating event for the suit (involving inappropriate language in the workplace) that the city had already addressed by disciplining two involved officers and they had admitted their mistake.”
Benjamin also said that May and Mailman dropped their claims for lost and future wages, which were made when they felt they would have to quit their jobs because of the alleged harassment, and before Roberts became chief in September 2014. The $30,000 payment to each woman was for emotional distress, he said.
“The city is obviously glad to put the lawsuit behind it,” Benjamin said. “Chief Roberts inherited this suit. All of the alleged conduct took place before her arrival as chief, but the changes she oversaw in the workplace were seen as very beneficial by these plaintiffs and went a long way to helping the city to get the matter resolved.”