Judge excludes some evidence in Cranberry discrimination suit
CRANBERRY TWP — The jury in a federal pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against Cranberry Township will not hear about the plaintiff’s receipt of unemployment benefits, but may hear about the cost to taxpayers of paying the plaintiff for full-time work, a judge ruled Wednesday, with the trial scheduled to begin in just more than a week.
U.S. District Judge Christy Criswell Wiegand ruled that Cranberry cannot present evidence that Tiffani Shaffer, a township police officer who sued alleging she was discriminated against due to her pregnancy, received unemployment compensation, or a two-page typed document written by the township’s human resources director following a meeting with Shaffer.
The township may, however, be able to refer to the “cost to taxpayers” of keeping Shaffer employed on light duty but paying her full-time wages, Wiegand ruled.
Wiegand’s rulings come as the township and Shaffer prepare to go to trial over Shaffer’s 2019 lawsuit, in which she claimed the township discriminated against her in 2018 based on her sex and pregnancy, and later retaliated against her after she filed complaints with federal and state entities tasked with resolving workplace discrimination complaints.
Shaffer alleges she received just 16.7 hours of work per week while on light duty — including four weeks of no hours and seven more weeks during which she was scheduled for fewer than eight hours — and did not receive a set schedule, a significantly lower number of hours than male and non-pregnant female police officers on light duty had received in the past.
The male and non-pregnant female officers, Shaffer alleges, worked an average of between 22 and 43.1 hours per week, worked a set schedule and were not scheduled for any weeks with no hours of work.
Cranberry, in response to Shaffer’s allegations, says the officer’s seniority — Shaffer had just come off a one-year probationary status when she became pregnant — make her comparisons to other, more senior officers who went on light duty like comparing apples and oranges.
Wiegand ruled in favor of Shaffer on the unemployment compensation issue because she found such compensation irrelevant. The jury will not be asked to award Shaffer any backpay should she win at trial, Wiegand wrote, and as such the matter of whether she was paid during the time she claims she was discriminated against is not relevant for the jury to hear.
The judge also ruled in Shaffer’s favor on her motion to exclude a two-page typed note from the township’s human resources manager, which the manager wrote following a meeting between the manager, police chief Kevin Meyer and Shaffer, after Shaffer filed a discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Despite the township’s arguments to the contrary, Wiegand determined the note is inadmissible hearsay and as such Cranberry cannot present it to the jury.
But Wiegand ruled against Shaffer on another motion, in which Shaffer sought to exclude references to the “cost to the taxpayers” of paying Shaffer for full-time work when there was not enough work to justify a full-time schedule. Cranberry — on a limited basis — can introduce evidence showing that, Wiegand ruled, because it is not necessarily “unfair prejudice or misleading the jury.”
Cranberry “may seek to introduce testimony regarding the cost of accommodating light duty requests, but only to the extent Chief Meyer testifies and lays the foundation that he (1) actually considered cost as a factor in evaluating light duty requests and (2) actually considered cost in evaluating Ms. Shaffer’s request,” Wiegand wrote.
Jury selection for the case is scheduled for June 27, with the trial to follow.
