A south Georgia farm has settled a case with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by agreeing to pay $500,000 to seasonal farmworkers, many of them African-American, who, according to the EEOC, had been subjected to discrimination based on their race and because they were U.S. citizens.

The EEOC announced the settlement of the 2011 lawsuit today with Hamilton Growers Inc., which was doing business in Colquitt County as Southern Valley Fruit and Vegetable Inc., according to the EEOC. Georgia Legal Services joined with EEOC lawyers to represented the plaintiff workers.

“This case brings to the forefront an issue that is increasingly affecting members of agricultural communities throughout the nation,” said Bernice William Kimbrough, the EEOC’s district director in Atlanta. “We will continue to focus our efforts to eradicate all forms of discrimination against the American work force.”

Said legal services lawyer Leah Lotto: “Discrimination against American workers in the H-2A guest worker program is endemic. We hope this case will bring attention to that problem and that we will see Hamilton Growers demonstrate to its neighbors that offering job opportunities to American workers is not only legally required, but also the right thing to do for communities and local economies.”

Passed in 1986, the H-2A agricultural guest worker program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals as seasonal agricultural workers but only after establishing that there are not a sufficient number of U.S. workers who are able, willing, and qualified and who will be available at the time and place needed to perform the required labor or services.

In order to hire foreign citizens as guest workers, U.S. employers must undertake “positive recruitment efforts” to hire U.S. workers through labor and farmworker organizations and also advertise the jobs in general circulation newspapers or on the radio.

The EEOC suit alleged that the farm had discriminated against farm workers who were U.S. citizens by firing “virtually all” of them while continuing to employ Mexican workers during the 2009, 2010 and 2011 growing seasons. The EEOC  claimed that 16 African-American workers were subjected to “race-based comments by a management official” when they were fired in 2009.

The suit also  claimed that the farm also provided fewer earning opportunities to U.S. workers by assigning them to pick vegetables in fields that had already been picked by foreign workers, resulting in lower pay than their Mexican counterparts.

The suit also claimed that U.S. workers – unlike foreign workers — were subjected to delayed starting times and early stop times, which also reduced their pay.

As part of the settlement, Hamilton Growers will make a “good faith” effort to hire and retain qualified U.S. citizens and African-American workers for all of their available farmwork positions, including supervisory slots, the EEOC said. The farm  will also implement non-discriminatory hiring measures to include targeted recruitment and advertising, the appointment of a compliance officer and management training, the EEOC said.

The company also pledged to create a job termination appeal process, extend job offers to rehire workers who were fired during the 2009-2012 seasons, provide transportation for U.S. workers and limit contact between U.S. workers and management officials who allegedly discriminated against them, the EEOC said.

Robert Dawkins, the EEOC’s regional attorney in Atlanta, said, “The EEOC is pleased to have effectuated positive change in the employment practices of agricultural employers who regularly hire foreign workers under the H-2A visa program for temporary or seasonal work. Federal law protects U.S. workers against an employer’s discriminatory preferences, and we are optimistic that this resolution will go  a long way in discouraging employers drom discriminating against workers based on race and national origin in the hiring and firing process.”

The defendant who represented himself in a Marietta murder trial was convicted Friday afternoon.

A jury of six men and six women found Waseem Daker guilty of the 1995 strangling death of Delta flight attendant Karmen Smith and the attack on her then 5-year-old son that left him with 18 stab wounds and nearly cost him his life.

The verdict concluded a three-week trial before Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley. On the day of opening statements, Daker fired his court-appointed lawyers from the father-and-son firm Treadaway & Treadaway and acted as his own counsel.

His defense strategy was to question the validity and proper handling of evidence and bring up other possible suspects who might have done the victim harm. It was a defense built on the potential of reasonable doubt.

“You’re not supposed to give the state the benefit of the doubt. You’re supposed to give it to me, the defendant,” Daker told the jury in his closing argument Thursday. “I don’t have to prove I’m innocent.”

Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Jesse Evans told the jury, “The evidence is overwhelming.” He reviewed the DNA evidence matching Daker to a hair found on the victim’s body—underneath her shirt and five layers of bedding. “DNA is proof positive,” Evans said, noting that Daker told police he had never been in the house where Smith lived in a basement apartment.

Her housemate was Lottie Spencer Blatz, the woman Daker was convicted of stalking in 1996. Daker served 10 years for the stalking charges, which included burglary, threats to kill Blatz and her then 10-year-old daughter and calling her phone hundreds of times. Daker was arrested for the murder in January 2010 after new DNA technology provided a perfect match, Evans said.

Evans also displayed images of women bound and strangled—in the same manner as Smith’s body was—found in the defendant’s car and laptop computer after his arrest in 2010.

An attorney for a minority contractor involved in multi-million dollar lawsuits with the DeKalb County school system over school construction projects confirmed that his client has settled.

“We are pleased to announce that E.R. Mitchell & Company and the DeKalb County School District have settled all claims asserted against each other in the pending lawsuit,” Joseph Burby IV said in a written statement.

Burby did not provide a copy of the settlement, and school district spokesmen could not be reached immediately for comment.

Mitchell and the school project construction management firm, Heery International, filed suit against the school system after being terminated from projects in 2007, claiming breach of contract and seeking $1.5 million. The school system filed a $100 million countersuit a month later, charging the companies with racketeering.

“[Thursday’s] settlement marks the end of what has been a very long and costly dispute for E.R. Mitchell Jr., and he is glad to put this matter behind him and move forward,” Burby said.

Litigation between the school system and Heery will continue, and a trial has been scheduled for February 2013.

Heery spokesman David Rubinger wouldn’t comment on the Mitchell settlement, but he said, “When we do go to trial we believe Heery will be vindicated.”

A DeKalb County judge has reduced a $2.5 million punitive damages award in a medical-malpractice case to $250,000, per the law that caps punitive damages at that amount unless jurors found the defendants specifically intended to cause the plaintiffs harm.

But the matter, in which the total award fell from $3.4 million to $1.15 million, is not entirely settled. Plaintiffs attorney Peter Law said he informed Judge Alvin Wong he would file a motion to reconsider, arguing that the statute could be interpreted as capping punitive damages for each of the three defendants rather than at $250,000 per case. He has 30 days from June 18, when Wong signed the order, to file.

The suit was brought by the estate and family of Cho Kim, 86, who committed suicide in March 2009 after receiving a steroid injection in her knee at the Georgia Clinic, which caused a staph infection in her joint.

The suit named the Georgia Clinic, a physician’s assistant and two supervising doctors as defendants.

The jury awarded a total of $2.5 million in punitive damages, dividing the amount among the clinic, the physician’s assistant and
one of the supervising doctors.

The judgment signed by Wong also includes the jury’s award of $400,000 to Kim’s estate for the infection claim and $500,000 to her daughter for the wrongful death claim.

Law said Wong also indicated during a Tuesday conference call that he will entertain other post-trial plaintiff motions, such as one for attorney fees.

The Daily Report published a story about this case today but was not aware that Wong had authorized the punitive damages cut to $250,000 until this morning.

Savannahnow.com has a report of a longshoreman having an unbelievable day in Chatham County State Court. First,
Kirk Deweese won a $5.6 million verdict against the Savannah Port Authority for being injured in a wreck there. Then he learned the law limits the port authority’s liability to $1 million. Then, he was taken away in the custody of Chatham County Sheriff’s deputies for allegedly bringing a loaded gun to court that day.

Here’s the link to the story: http://savannahnow.com/latest-news/2012-05-11/savannah-longshoreman-awarded-57-million-against-georgia-ports-authority.

A defendant in the multi-million dollar will dispute settled last week in the middle of trial has written his version of how Summerville lawyer Bobby Lee Cook persuaded his opponents’ clients to cut a deal.

The story by Brewster Yates in chattnoogan.com explains his version of a trial in which the 86-year-old Cook, assisted by grandson Sutton Conley, represented plaintiff Allen Yates.

Allen Yates was suing his half-brother, Brewster, and stepmother, JoAnn Cline Yates, over a will that had cut Allen out of a family fortune worth more than $10 million.

The case settled before the defense presented its side – just after Cook interrogated JoAnn Yates on the witness stand. The settlement sets up a marital trust that, upon the widow’s death, will be divided among the father’s five children from two previous wives.

The sixth paragraph of defendant Brewster Yates’ gave an inside glimpse into how Cook managed to encourage settlement at an opportune moment.

“Bobby Lee Cook stepped up to me (as JoAnn was leaving the stand) and told me he thought I seemed like a nice young man, and that he thought we should just ‘put this to bed.’ Mr. Cook called all the lawyers together and then asked our side to settle before we started our defense,” Brewster Yates’ letter said.

“I then requested that I be able to see my brother in private,” the letter continued. “He spoke to me from his heart. We both wept and embraced and, I believe, started to heal.”

The settlement followed.

The full story can be found here: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/3/5/220832/Setting-The-Record-Straight-About-The.aspx

Big verdicts get attention, but not to be discounted is the “back end” work it takes to get paid, trial lawyers say. The winning lawyer in the recent $75 million Cobb County Superior Court bench trial verdict — Fred Bentley, who tried the case with former Gov. Roy Barnes and partner John Salter — took a big step in that direction by getting $25 million set aside pending the appeal – the limit under the law. Bentley asked for a bond but received cash, which he liked even better. So, that’s $25 million fewer things to worry about.

Also, Bentley said he is filing a cross appeal for his client, real-estate developer David Pearson. He had asked for $160 million.  Pearson said the Delta Community Credit Union’s about-face on his loan deal cost him the business “opportunity of a lifetime” for a Florida Panhandle development.  He alleged that the company that carried out his plan after the credit union blocked his financing made the big money he would have earned. He tells a tale of a lender turning into a “collateral eating monster,” lowering appraisals on properties and demanding more be put up to secure an already negotiated loan. Meanwhile, Bentley – who stretches to call this a banking David and Goliath story — said he is getting calls from all over the state from business people with similar tales. Delta Community Credit Union – the largest institution of its kind in Georgia — has filed notice of appeal.

In a 4-3 decision by the Georgia Supreme Court, Atlanta blogger Matthew Cardinale, who is not a lawyer, won a case before the Georgia Supreme Court challenging the Atlanta City Council’s vote-recording process.

We will have more on the court’s decision later in the day. You can watch the oral arguments by Cardinale and the city’s lawyer  here (or click the picture).

Plaintiff’s attorney Michael L. Neff said he was taken aback by a DeKalb County jury’s response to his client. She had sued her home security monitoring company for failing to warn her that her alarm had been going off all day before she came home and was attacked, raped and kidnapping by an intruder who had been waiting there.

As Neff’s 64-year-old client walked toward the aisle to thank the jurors, each of the 12 embraced her.

What the jurors did not do was talk to the lawyers, both plaintiff’s and defense counsel said.

“There’s normally not a lot of love for the lawyer. I got a lot out of the respect they gave her, though,” Neff said. “It was a wonderful moment.”

The full story on the case will be online late this afternoon and in tomorrow’s Daily Report.

A Gwinnett County State Court jury returned a $9.8 million verdict Thursday evening against a family that ran a home day care center near Buford where a child drowned, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said.

The jury apportioned half the verdict to Tanya Moon, who operated the day care and split the rest between her husband, Shawn Moon, and his father, Terry Moon, who owned the house.

“It’s a terrible case,” said R. Alan Cleveland, attorney for plaintiffs Kemi Green and Gbolahan Bankolemoh, whose son Abiola Bankolemoh was just under 2 when he fell into a swimming pool outside the home where he and his brother were staying for day care. Cleveland tried the case along with Jeffrey R. Harris of Harris Penn Lowry DelCampo.

Cleveland and Harris said a high-low agreement was in place between the plaintiffs and defendants, but they did not disclose the amounts.

The Moons were defended by James T. Perry, staff counsel for Cincinnati Insurance Co. He could not be reached immediately by phone or email Friday