This story has been updated to include clarification from the City of Edmonds regarding attorney fees.
An out-of-court settlement drafted last month and subsequently signed by Mayor Mike Rosen puts to rest the long-simmering matter of Sherman Pruitt’s lawsuit against the City of Edmonds alleging racial discrimination, harassment, stereotyping and race-based attacks stemming from Pruitt’s failed hiring process for Edmonds chief of police.
The Edmonds City Council authorized the mayor to sign the settlement at its Jan. 7 meeting. With the mayor’s Jan. 21 signature, the terms of the out-of-court settlement are now a matter of public record.
The settlement awards Pruitt $400,000 in exchange for his agreement to drop all complaints against the city as alleged in his original lawsuit filed Dec. 14, 2023 (more information in My Edmonds News earlier coverage here). Further the settlement states that he will hold the city harmless and not file any future actions “with respect to matters released by this Agreement.” In addition, the settlement stipulates that there is no admission or assumption of liability or wrongdoing by the city, and accordingly Pruitt must pay his own attorney fees.
The cash award and associated costs will be paid by the city’s insurer WICA, and will not come from city coffers.
“The city did not pay anything for attorney fees,” explained city spokeperson Kelsey Foster in an email to My Edmonds News. “As this was litigation, it was handled by WCIA, therefore WCIA paid all associated costs for this litigation.”
Pruitt’s attorneys, Jay Free and Beth Bloom, say they “are satisfied with the outcome.” Free added that, “By seeking justice, our client created a much-needed dialog on the dangers that occur when employers…break the fundamental tenets of equal employment opportunity.”
Read the full history of the case and find links to past coverage in My Edmonds News’ earlier story here.
So the city admitted racial discrimination? What? Ups thought it was just a mistake by a over zealous board member stepping over the cities hiring ability? What happened?
As the story says: “the settlement stipulates that there is no admission or assumption of liability or wrongdoing by the city, and accordingly Pruitt must pay his own attorney fees.”
Gotta love DEI!
Yes, Steve, thanks for the positive statement about DEI. At first Idid not see that it had to do with this issue. But when you mention it, it is great to see that people are protected when they bring merit to a job regardless of their background. As you suggest Trump wants to deny minorities with qualifications of jobs by saying that DEI implies that only white men are capable. We all know that women and members of minority groups are just as capable. Super!
Unbelievable. Discrimination is unacceptable on any level.
However, this amount is egregious. No wonder our city in so far in the red. Spending $ we do not have, making settlements in $ amounts that are exorbitant.
The US judicial system is broken (juries) to award large amounts of money and settlements are a reflection of that.
Marta, the opening phrase in this MEN article is, “an out-of-court settlement.” I suppose the threat of going to court played a part, but blaming the courts in this case seems harsh to me.
The city just loses…again.
Yep, I also recall the city paying $500k to settle a fragrance in the workplace suit.
Good reference point. The E/P settlement was less than that fragrance settlement, plus inflation.
This is a perfect example of the complete failure of the WOKE – DEI ideology. Not only has it had a negative impact on our ability to fully fund our police force (budget crisis we are now experiencing and possibly having to farm out our police service) but it tarnished the names and careers of two good people, Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Lawless. IMHO, Mr. Pruitt had every right to sue the city as did Mr. Lawless. This whole virtue signaling political comedy show cost all of us dearly. There are some that are still on the council that took part in this charade and they need to still be held accountable by not getting re-elected next time they are up for re-election. This type of politics is a thing of the past, thank God, and we can now focus on electing people that represent us and know how to run and operate a city. Not spend money into oblivion on feel good politics that do nothing but put us in a budget crisis, like we find ourselves in today. Maybe The City of Edmonds needs DOGE as well!!!
I don’t remember any info the City has reported in the past about insurance coverage. Perhaps the insurance carrier pays the $400k. Don’t assume it’s being paid out of the general fund. (But our attorney fees and our insurance premiums ARE paid out of the general fund). There was another smaller employee settlement in the 2023/2024 timeline. And there is a third claim still in-process by a former employee. HR type payouts seems to be a significant event in this town. Is that typical of other towns of our size (roughly 250 employees)?
Marta, this money was paid by insurance carrier and not by the city
One of my many faults is that I’m not enough of a detail oriented person but I know that details and facts do matter greatly. If you read the article carefully you will see the payout did not come out of the city budget, but it was paid by the city’s insurance carrier, so it’s not proper to hang that cost issue on the Mayor or the Council. That said; there are questions we should be asking the Mayor and Council and that is how much time and money did city workers have to spend on this and was any of that money reimbursed by the Insurance carrier? Another question the Mayor needs to answer is how much time did our contracted city attorney spend on this issue and what did that actually cost the taxpayers? Or, was the attorney’s costs picked up by the Insurer too? One would think a Mayor as anxious to be transparent about everything as ours claims to be would be most delighted to answer these questions. It would also be good to know what the year to year increases have been in our insurance premiums since we’ve had all this litigation and insurance claims.
The insurance carrier retained defense counsel at their expense, per usual when insurer covers a claim. The City Attorney did not represent any of the defendants in the case.
Kim – thanks for the info about what party paid for the City’s defense attorney. My earlier comment was poorly worded, as I was just thinking more broadly about what fund the Lighthouse Law invoices are paid out of when they do general City business. Appreciate your knowledge about Sheriff Pruitt’s claim.
Kim, so you can absolutely say that our city attorney spent no time counseling the mayor or city council people and did no billing relative to this case? That would suggest that the Mayor and Vivian Olson had no billed interactions with our city attorney relative to this action. It would also suggest that our city attorney had no billed interactions with the insurance company’s hired attorneys regarding this case. I’d like to see a statement from the Mayor and the city attorney to the effect that no city attorney hours were billed to the city (taxpayers) regarding this case.
I don’t know the answer to those questions, but a public records request would yield the answer. I apologize for what another commenter told me offline was a stupid and asinine comment on my behalf.
I know we have lost several cases prior to this and had to pay out. (Interesting to find that out) however, usually, when insurance gets used frequently, they drop you or significantly raise the cost. Has this happened?
Joy:
Good question. And have we ever won one?
From what I’ve heard, settlements are not lost cases. Edmonds did lose a jury case in 2014 w/an award to the plaintiff. However this suit did not get to a jury and our insurance provider decided to end it by settling for $400k, which seems like a minuscule settlement amount compared to the allegations in the original suit, plus a large chunk of which went to the plaintiff’s attorney. WICA has a FOIA process so maybe you can get some answers and share with us all.
Kim, I know that it would not be your responsibility to answer the questions I raised and you made great points of fact in your comment and I meant no criticism of it. I’m just tired of all the lack of transparency and plain truth that gets swept under the rug all the time in our city government and I think the citizens need to get better information from the people who claim they want to take care of our city but then play state and regional politics at our expense. It strikes me that lots of controversial stuff gets buried in executive sessions, attorney client privilege, NDAs and that sort of thing. I’m happy that Mr. Pruitt got a much deserved settlement and I’m sad that our city executive and legislative branches seem so inept and depending on the advice of legal council almost 24/7. Our Mayor and city council can’t seem to make any decisions without conferring first with their legal counselor so the city attorney becomes a hidden 8th Council member and personal lawyer for the Mayor’s interests. It doesn’t need to be like this and shouldn’t be like this.
My Edmonds News reported the following on October 4, 2023:
WCIA (Washington Cities Insurance Authority) Insurance has increased by $500,000.
I do not know how much of that increase, if any, was related to the city’s individual claim history.
The following article may provide some insight into how insurance costs are impacted by claims against the city:
https://myedmondsnews.com/2015/07/insurance-costs-going-up-for-edmonds-in-wake-of-humann-judgment/
This 2015 article is also a reminder that the City Council may want to return to the practice of keeping MINUTES of Executive Sessions which can later be released to the public. City officials are still doing the public’s business, even in an Executive Session.
One more point, an argument can be made that this situation may have never happened had the following appointment been legal under our city code:
https://myedmondsnews.com/2020/04/mayor-picks-lawless-as-edmonds-permanent-police-chief-pending-city-council-confirmation/
Thank you for the good info Ken. It would be nice to see some history on the city’s success/failure experience with law suits.
What I don’t understand is; why the City ‘s insurance would shoulder the complete settlement costs, and that the two culprits are getting off Scott-free.
As I recall this wasn’t the case in the Debra Humann lawsuit and Mayor Cooper’s liability.