Jury Awards $5.2M To Former Town Of Hempstead Highway Employee Who Alleged Retaliation: Court Filings

HEMPSTEAD, NY — A former Town of Hempstead employee is set to walk away with over $5 million after a jury ruled in her favor in an employment discrimination suit against the town.

According to court filings, Debra Fee was an employee in the Town of Hempstead’s highway department, starting on a part-time basis in 2006 before moving to full-time in 2011. According to her civil complaint, Fee was brought on full-time at a lower level of employment than men who were hired full-time with the town, and had to work more time as a part-time employee than those men before she was made a full-time employee.

Furthermore, Fee’s complaint alleges that she spent about four years singlehandedly managing a stockroom in Franklin Square for the town, despite the stockroom management consisting of duties “far more than what is expected or required” of an employee at Fee’s grade level at the time.

After applying for a title change in 2016, Fee’s complaint reads that she was approached by the commissioner of the highway department, Thomas Toscano, and told that she might be placed on the town’s “road crew” “because she had raised an issue with regard to title and pay.”

The month after filing her application for a title change, Fee was placed on the road crew, where she was tasked with duties including picking up trash, breaking and hauling pavement, disposing of tree limbs and using heavy machinery, the complaint reads.

According to Fee’s complaint, the reassignment was a move made to silence her, and was made with “discriminatory and retaliatory intent.”

In that complaint, Fee claimed these actions had violated federal, state and local human rights laws, and sought more than $3 million for each of six causes of action. Per a Monday letter from her attorney, Fred Brewington, a jury awarded her $5.2 million in damages on July 16.

For its part, the town claimed in a July 14 letter that Fee had failed to prove that she had been paid less than her male counterparts for the same work, alleging that three of the men Fee had mentioned by name were not equal comparators to her in the workplace.

Furthermore, the town claimed in the July 14 letter that the decision to reject her application for a title change was not made on the basis of sex, but on the basis that town officials “[didn’t] think she was working out of title.”

In comments made after the trial, Brewington said, "This retaliatory move for asserting her rights caused Ms. Fee to experience a significant amount of physical pain and immense emotional distress."

According to Brewington's office, the jury awarded Fee "$1,150,000 in past pain and suffering and $3,180,000 for future pain and suffering." Additionally, Brewington's office said Toscano and highway department supervisor Antonio Fanizzi had been found liable for $330,000 and $200,000 in punitive damages, respectively.

As for the town, attorney Donna Napolitano could not be reached for comment Tuesday regarding potential appeals or the payment of the damages.