Fired Bakersfield firefighter awarded $100,000

A jury declared last week that city officials wrongly fired a Bakersfield firefighter and now must pay him $100,000.

But city officials were mum Monday on how they’ll react.

A change in policy? Discipline for the fire chief? The wronged man getting his job back?

“You’re asking questions I don’t have any answers to,” Councilman Harold Hanson said Monday. “I would be better able to discuss it with you after I’ve talked to counsel.”

Two other council members and the city manager also demurred, in part because the case isn’t completely resolved. A judge has yet to rule on attorney’s fees.

And Bakersfield Fire Chief Ron Fraze did not return a call seeking comment.

Robby Pratt was fired in 2007, supposedly for having twice been arrested for driving under the influence. He pled down in one case and the other was dismissed, said his lawyer in the two cases.

But the jury declared the real reason Pratt was fired was that he was believed to be gay, and for reporting alleged misconduct by another firefighter.

Richard Middlebrook was Pratt’s attorney on three earlier cases — the two DUI charges and a fight where Pratt stepped up to defend a woman, according to Middlebrook. He said Pratt has, on one level, been vindicated, but on another he lost.

“He can’t even get his job back,” Middlebrook said. “The $100,000 doesn’t change a thing.”

The amount of money the jury awarded is just one year’s worth of pay and benefits, Middlebrook said, and Pratt is unlikely to get hired on at any other fire department.

Meanwhile, John Weber, the captain whose harassment of Pratt sparked the case, has taken a new job with the Manhattan Beach Fire Department, according to the city’s human resources department.

Pratt had gone through the city’s administrative process to get his job back, but lost all those appeals.

That doesn’t sit well with Dennis Roe, a firefighter who testified on Pratt’s behalf in the two-week trial.

“Since he was wrongfully terminated, shouldn’t he get his job back?” Roe said.

He said he doesn’t have high hopes that the verdict will be a wake-up call to fire department management.

“The history of this department is nothing ever really changes,” he said.

Source: www.bakersfield.com - Link