A white Allegheny County jail corrections officer who claimed he was fired in retaliation for reporting racial and sexual harassment incidents has been awarded almost $1 million by a federal jury.
Jeffrey Kengerski claimed that the Allegheny County Jail and Warden Orlando Harper violated his statutory and constitutional right to be free from retaliation for complaints of race-based harassment in his workplace under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Right Act. He further claimed that the jail and Harper interfered with his rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and retaliated against him for opposing conduct made unlawful under the FMLA.
Prior to filing his lawsuit, Kengerski filed Title VII complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission but his claims were dismissed. In January, 2020, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Ranjan, dismissed the case, finding that Kengerski’s report did not concern an unlawful employment practice under Title VII.
However, in August, 2021, a three judge panel for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case back to district court for trial. A jury has now awarded $400,000 in compensatory damages and $531,000 for back pay and future earnings.
In 2015, Kengerski complained that a supervising corrections officer had made racially offensive comments about his young biracial niece and sent numerous racially offensive text messages to his phone. The officer ignored his requests to...
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