A federal jury has awarded longtime television reporter Mary Zanakis $87,000 because KHON-TV failed to return her to her former job and fired her in 1999 for taking maternity leave. Jury awards isle
journalist $87,000The reporter said she was fired
for taking maternity leave
By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com"I'm just so happy," said Zanakis outside the courtroom. "I was wronged from the very beginning, and I went forward with my beliefs -- and I'm happy I did -- that women who go out on maternity leave need to be protected as the law says they should."
Bruce Voss, attorney for KHON, said his clients are "very disappointed" in the verdicts. "There was no evidence whatsoever that Ms. Zanakis was discriminated against in any way because she took maternity leave." Voss said they expect to file a motion for judgment.
Zanakis had sued Emmis Communications Corp., Emmis Television Broadcasting LP, former KHON General Manager Kent Baker and then-News Director Jim McCoy alleging that they had violated her federal Family Medical Leave Act rights by not returning her to the same "status position" she held before she took leave in January 1999 to care for her second child. She returned to work in March and was fired in June 1999.
She had been producing and reporting five to 10 minutes of health news on the weekday mornings. When she returned from leave, she was assigned to general news reporting -- doing stories assigned to her for the evening news, with a different schedule and responsibilities but with same pay and benefits.
Zanakis, who was the highest-paid reporter at KHON, making in excess of $71,000 after 18 1/2 years there, was hired by KITV in February 2000 making $45,000 as a reporter covering crime and police.
Zanakis went to trial seeking about $770,000 in damages, including $102,000 in past damages. It will be up to U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who presided over the weeklong trial, to either award future damages or order KHON to reinstate her to her former position. The morning health news segment has not returned to KHON since it was eliminated before Zanakis' return from maternity leave in March 1999.
Voss had argued that Zanakis' position on the morning news had been eliminated and she was later fired for various reasons, including budget restraints and a need to upgrade the reporting staff. But it had nothing to do with Zanakis' taking maternity leave, he said.
Zanakis' colleagues at KHON took the stand and testified that her work was weak and lacked initiative, she was not a team player, and her attitude and demeanor toward others was hurting the morning show.
Zanakis said it was evident that the jury did not find the testimony by defense witnesses credible.
Morning anchor Leslie Wilcox had testified that Zanakis was chilly toward her throughout the years they worked together on the morning show and was uncooperative and unprofessional. She said she complained to McCoy, saying Zanakis' behavior was "detracting and distracting."
Zanakis had testified that she knew she was doing a good job and that no one -- not Wilcox, morning co-anchor Ron Mizutani, Baker or McCoy -- confronted her about problems they had with her attitude or performance.
It was only after she filed suit, she said, did their criticisms surface.
McCoy, news director at KHON for 6 1/2 years before he was let go in September for reasons unrelated to the Zanakis lawsuit, and Baker, who now owns a small community paper in his hometown of Moville, Iowa, both said they were disappointed in the jury's decision.
"I'm obviously disappointed the jury bought the emotions rather than the facts," McCoy said. "If they did their job and looked at the law and the evidence, I'm confident Channel 2 would have prevailed."
McCoy said he talked to Zanakis about the problems and kept his own notes about complaints made about her, but it was not his management style to document everything. "I treated employees like adults and didn't think they needed to be disciplined and documented like children."