The following is a reprint from "THE LEGAL INTELLIGENCER"
Jury Duty Led to Retaliation, Jury Finds

BY SHANNON P. DUFFY
U.S. Courthouse Correspondent

A federal jury last week awarded more than $72,000 to a Hispanic employee at the Free Library of Philadelphia who said he was fired after serving jury duty.

The jury found two illegal factors -- race and retaliation for serving as a juror -- each played a "determinative" role in the library's decision to fire William Marquess. Marquess alleged that when he tried to present proof of his jury duty to his African-American supervisor, she insisted the library is not run by "old white men."

Marquess' lawyer, Mark S. Scheffer of Larry Pitt & Associates, said he will now be filing a petition for about $30,0000 to $40,000 in attorney's fees.

According to the suit, Marquess was hired as a library assistant at the Northeast Regional Library branch on Cottman Avenue in March 1997. He received notice for jury duty on April 28, but was excused at the request of his supervisor, Viola Jones, who is African-American.

Marquess received another notice for jury duty on July 7. This time, he went to court and was selected to serve on a jury in a medical malpractice insurance case. Late that afternoon, he said he returned to the library and told Jones that he had been chosen to serve.

But Jones told him the library was short-handed, Marquess testified, and she threatened to fire him if he didn't report to work the next day. Marquess said he reported for jury service despite the warning, and obtained a letter from Philadelphia Judge Marvin R. Halbert explaining that he was serving as a juror in a major trial.

Marquess testified that when he gave the letter to Jones, she said, "old white men don't run this library; I do," and that she crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. Jones then began to make negative comments when he returned to work after serving on the jury. Jones, who also testified at the trial, denied making the comment or trashing the letter.

Although he had received a "satisfactory" performance evaluation before the incident, Marquess said he began to receive poor and unsatisfactory evaluations and reprimands. He was fired in September 1997.

Attorney Scheffer said the three-day trial boiled down to a credibility contest and that the jury clearly found Marquess to be credible.

"The fact that he even had to get a letter from Judge Halbert told you that something was going on," Scheffer said. "Why would you do that if you weren't being threatened?"

US District Judge Herbert J. Hutton presided over the trial and the City of Philadelphia was defended by Deputy City Solicitor Michael Holmes.