Washington Blade - July 13, 2001
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Plaintiff Wayne Harrell charges in his suit that in 1998 his supervisor refused his request to be excused from responsibilities for lifting and carrying computers. The suit says Harrell had submitted a note from his doctor stating that such duties would aggravate an AIDS-related illness that causes extreme fatigue.

According to the suit, the supervisor, Carmella Cowgill, deputy corporation counsel for management, in refusing the request, "failed to make a reasonable accommodation" for Harrell's disability as required under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. AIDS is listed as a disability under the act, which is known as the ADA.

Peter Lavalle, public information officer for the Corporation Counsel's office, said the office never comments on pending cases. Lavalle said the office would make its position on Harrell's lawsuit known when it files its reply to the suit in federal court within the next several weeks.

Whitman-Walker Clinic's legal department and the D.C. law firm of Beveridge and Diamond are representing Harrell.

Harrell's suit states that in the summer of 1998, shortly after her refusal to excuse Harrell from heavy lifting duties, Cowgill assigned Harrell the task of disassembling and moving "approximately 200 computer workstations (including various heavy components such as computer monitors, central processing units, printers, etc.) and to move the equipment across the street in the summer heat."

The suit states that Cowgill once again refused Harrell's request "for a reasonable accommodation" and "told Mr. Harrell that if he could not lift, there was nothing else for him to do at OCC."

At the time Harrell was first hired at the Corporation Counsel's office in 1997, the suit says, his duties included maintaining computer equipment, training and assisting about 400 computer users at three locations within the Corporation Counsel's offices, and making arrangements for the acquisition of new equipment.

The suit says his assignment called for him to only "occasionally" set up workstations by assembling and connecting computer hardware.

It was not until Cowgill began employment at the office in 1998, the suit says, that Harrell began to receive more manual labor assignments. The suit says the Corporation Counsel's office had retained a number of outside contractors at the time to provide computer maintenance work and that these contractors "were available to perform any moving, lifting, and the like that might have been required."

In October 1998, after determining Cowgill would not adjust his work assignments, Harrell filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity office within the Corporation Counsel's office, stating that he was legally disabled and his supervisor was engaging in disability discrimination. The suit says that Cowgill responded by retaliating against Harrell, ignoring a letter sent by an EEO official instructing her "not to take any retaliatory action."

In November 1998, the suit says, Cowgill "assigned Mr. Harrell to physically demanding supply room duties, which included being available throughout the day to accept supply deliveries, lifting heavy boxes, unpacking office supplies, and handing out these supplies to OCC employees." A short time later, the suit says, Harrell "arrived at work to find that his office was being used as a storage room for large amounts of computer equipment. So much equipment was placed in the office that visitors to Mr. Harrell's office often could not see him at his desk."

The suit says that Harrell's working conditions improved beginning in December 1999, when Cowgill left her job at the Corporation Counsel's office "for reasons unknown to Mr. Harrell."

Dan Brunner, an attorney with Whitman-Walker, said that although Harrell continues to work at the Corporation Counsel's office under improved conditions, he suffered serious adverse effects from the actions of former supervisor Cowgill. The suit lists these effects as "sleeplessness, loss of appetite, depression, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, diminished morale and motivation, and injury to his continued development and training as a computer specialist, and diminished earning capacity."

The suit asks for an award of an unnamed sum in compensatory damages for these "injuries."

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