The city of Erie wants a federal judge to overturn the jury verdict that found the city discriminated against a firefighter when it fired her after she set a fire during a suicide attempt in 2006.
Gerald Villella, assistant city solicitor, filed a motion Tuesday asking U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin to rule that the firefighter, Mary Wolski, had failed to provide enough evidence to prove her claims.
Villella wants a new trial in the case, in which Wolski won back her job and more than $206,000 in back pay and other damages.
Wolski's lawyer, Paul Susko, is expected to file a response to the motion before McLaughlin issues his decision.
A jury unanimously ruled Feb. 6 that the city violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when it terminated Wolski in April 2007.
McLaughlin then immediately ordered the remedy: Wolski, he said, will get her job back, with back pay and seniority intact, as soon as the next available position is open.
The dispute stemmed from Wolski's Dec. 28, 2006, suicide attempt at her father's vacant home in the 1800 block of East 35th Street in the city of Erie.
Wolski, the city's first female firefighter, had fallen into a deep depression after her mother's battle with a staph infection and death in 2005.
Wolski was off work, under the care of a psychiatrist and taking six medications -- all of which had the potential to induce suicidal thoughts -- at the time of the suicide attempt.
Testimony indicated Wolski took a quantity of pills, then threw clothes into a bathtub and lit them, hoping to die by smoke inhalation.
When the heat became too intense, she threw a pan of water on the clothes, then left the bathroom and tried to use a knife to cut her wrists.
Key to the jury's deliberations was whether discrimination in part or altogether motivated the city's decision to fire Wolski in April 2007.
Villella claims that Wolski failed to show first that she was disabled because she did not show she had a history of suffering from a mental impairment that limited her major life activities, or that the city considered that condition in making its decision to terminate her.
Villella also blames McLaughlin, in part, for the trial's outcome.
"The trial court failed to recognize the magnitude of Wolski's misconduct and its impact upon the city in evaluating her claim of discrimination under the ADA," he wrote.
Villella complains that McLaughlin first approved one version of the instructions for the jurors on Feb. 3 that would have had jurors weigh whether the city used the fire as a pretext to fire Wolski because of her depression.
On Monday, Feb. 6, Villella claims, McLaughlin ruled instead that the jury would consider whether the city had a mixed motive when it fired Wolski -- that it improperly weighed both its concerns about her setting a fire and its concerns about her depression.
In making his decision, McLaughlin relied on testimony from city officials who said in depositions that they weighed concerns about Wolski's mental illness in making the decision to fire her, and testimony from Fire Chief Tony Pol, who said the city might have acted differently if it had reviewed Wolski's medical information.
Villella referred to that evidence as "stray remarks" that were not adequate to show that the city was motivated by discrimination.
Copyright 2012 - Erie Times-News, Pa.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
