FoA wins 15-year-old wrongful dismissal case

    WASHINGTON D.C.–The District of Columbia Commission on Human Rights on March 20,  2012 ruled that former Friends of Animals special investigator Carroll Cox “failed to establish Respondent (FoA) terminated him based on his race or retaliated against him in the exercise of rights protected under the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
The ruling appears to end nearly 15 years of litigation resulting from about 140 days of employment.  FoA hired Cox,  a former special investigator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and, earlier,  for the California Department of Fish & Game,   on a consulting basis on March 31,  1997.  FoA relocated Cox from Hawaii and put him on salary on July 7,  1997.  FoA terminated Cox on August 20,  1997.
Cox was then pursuing an ultimately unsuccessful wrongful dismissal case against the USFWS.  FoA dismissed Cox on the same day that then-FoA general counsel Herman Kaufman announced that FoA had settled unrelated litigation against the USFWS.  Suspecting linkage between the settlement and his dismissal,  Cox sued FoA in hopes of obtaining evidence that would help his case against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  The DCCHR ruling noted that no such evidence emerged.
However,  Cox learned in 2002 that Kaufman had never been admitted to the bar in Connecticut,  where FoA is headquartered.  FoA replaced Kaufman and Cox vs. FoA proceeded to trial before DCCHR Judge Cornelius R. Alexander Jr. in September 2005.  Before issuing a verdict,  Alexander on November 29,  2007 died of prostate cancer.
Cox has since 1997 headed the Hawaii-based organization Envirowatch.