In Davis v. Alameda County, on Thursday, December 15, 2011, a jury awarded $528,957 to Plaintiff Freddie Davis in her employment retaliation case against the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.  The jury found Captain James E. Ayala liable for retaliation against Ms. Davis.

Freddie Davis has lived a life dedicated to the advancement of civil rights and to fairness and equality for all people.  From her youth in Birmingham, Alabama marching with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to her current tenure as the head of the Hayward branch of the NAACP, Ms. Davis has advocated for the rights of those who have been underserved and underheard.  It is for this advocacy that Ms. Davis found herself in Court.

Ms. Davis worked more than 15 years as a nurse for Prison Health Services (PHS) at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin where she received consistently positive performance reviews.  In 2006, a group of nurses spoke out about the mistreatment they were receiving from a PHS manager.  Defendant Ayala threatened to revoke their security clearances in retaliation for their protest, which meant that they would lose their jobs.  Ms. Davis spoke out on behalf of the nurses stating that Defendant Ayala could not threaten them, and that proper procedures must be followed.  In retaliation, Ms. Davis was harassed and forced out of her job. She sought justice for the hostile treatment she received and for the retaliation against her.

The three-week jury trial was presided over by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco.  In representing Ms. Davis, Attorney Price was joined by Attorney Fania Davis of Oakland and Attorney Darryl Parker of the Premier Law Group in Bellevue, Washington.

After the trial’s conclusion, Attorney Price said, “The positive verdict for Ms. Davis sends a strong signal to powerful authorities in Alameda County and the State of California that discrimination and retaliation cannot and will not be tolerated in the 21st century.  Ms. Davis and this jury truly spoke truth to power.”

Our client rightly feels vindicated by the jury’s just decision!