Kirk Williams Anti-Bias

As a result of several law suits filed by the Kirk Williams Company Inc., the state of Ohio agreed to pay $360,000 as a settlement to the local heating and air conditioning company relating to an issue over minority hiring.

Kirk Williams filed suit after the state refused in 1987 and 1988 to allow the company to bid on state contracts. State Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinator Gilbert S. Price contended the company had violated affirmative action requirements to hire minorities and women.

In June 1987, the state refused to issue the company the required certificate of compliance for minority hiring, and in June 1998, the Department of Administrative Services formally ruled that Kirk Williams could not bid on state contracts.

Havens Limited filed four lawsuits in the company's behalf against the state and several of its officials. All four cases were settled by the agreement. In addition to paying the company, the state agreed to grant Kirk Williams a certificate of compliance.

Jim Havens, who represented Kirk Williams, felt the case was significant in that the state is no longer able to deny certificates of compliance to companies as a way of forcing them to adhere to minority hiring requirements. He said that Kirk Williams is the only company ever to be prohibited from bidding on a state contract because it had not met minority hiring goals.

$300,000 of the settlement was money the state owed the company for work it had performed at the Warren Correctional Facility in Lebanon, Ohio. The state had held the payment since mid-1988. The remainder was compensation for $1.2 million contract that the state had initially awarded the company after it had made the low bid for heating, ventilating and air conditioning work for Ohio State University's Clinical Medical Facilities, a four-story addition and renovation of the east wing of The Ohio State University Hospital's Doan Hall.

Because of the dispute over minority hiring, the state awarded the contract to the second lowest bidder. As a result, Kirk Williams sued the state for $1.4 million in actual damages and $4.1 million in punitive damages over the OSU contract.

The company received only a relatively small settlement from the state for the loss of that contract because state law allows recovery of only out-of-pocket cost.

Both sides originally agreed to a settlement, and documents were in process at the time Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Patrick M. McGrath issued a decision in the case. Havens then waited for payment before moving to dismiss the case. The decision was made on June 25 and the motion to dismiss was filed on July 5.

A representative of the State Attorney General then said that the decision has no legal effect because the case was dismissed as a result of the settlement. But Jim Havens maintained that the judge's decision affirmed his client's position: "With respect to the issues of these two parties, the court made a substantive ruling that the Kirk Williams Co. demonstrated good faith by complying with the affirmative action required by actively attempting to recruit minorities and women."

The judge also said that the state "made no attempt to present evidence about a pool of minority sheet metal workers available for hire, nor did the state present any evidence about the hiring and recruiting practices of the Kirk Williams Company. Instead," he said, "the state relied on reports that the company had an insufficient number of minorities and women workers." He also added that "the company had taken several steps that showed it acted in good faith. Particularly I appreciated the company's program specifically seeking minority and female workers; to recruit non-union and female workers; and that the company took measures to retain those workers who were hired."