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Wrongful dismissal suit ends with settlement
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BY: Douglas J. Guth Senior Staff Reporter
David Eden has a framed quote from ancient scholar Rabbi Hillel in the front hall of his Beachwood home: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Eden, a former WOIO Channel 19 managing editor, says he has done his best to live by Hillel’s famous words over the last “stressful, lonely” 12 months when the wrongful dismissal suit he filed against his ex-employer effectively consumed his world.
After losing his job in 2006, Eden sued the station and its top executives for wrongful termination. He accused station officials of retaliating against him for filing a complaint against a co-worker who made an anti-Semitic remark.
“You can’t come between a Jew and his money,” said the co-worker, Ryan Minnaugh, a family friend of station manager William Applegate.
On Dec. 4, Eden, who is Jewish, received what he calls “vindication” for his complaint in the form of a mid-trial settlement that ended the suit against the television station. “This was the biggest fight of my life,” Eden said during an interview on Monday. “I did what I thought was right.”
Terms of the resolution were kept confidential by mutual agreement. However, Andrew Kabat, Eden’s attorney, told the CJN that he and his client “are extremely pleased with the settlement.”
By standing up for himself, Eden, 55, believes he also stood up for others who have been similarly “mistreated” by powerful corporations.
The anti-Semitic remark wasn’t the only questionable behavior the former editor observed. On Martin Luther King Day, newsroom employees were offered Oreo cookies as a “joke,” Eden says. And black staffers at the station were told “white male anchors are an endangered species.” According to court documents, Eden also complained to his bosses about his coworkers taking part in on-the-job gambling.
The defense argued that Eden, a former editor of The Plain Dealer and the Free Times alternative news weekly, was fired after two years at WOIO for poor work performance. Kabat countered that his client received a promotion to executive producer of the noon and evening newscasts shortly before he was fired in June 2006. Assistant news director B.J. Finnell, who served as Eden’s supervisor, testified during the trial that he had no complaints with Eden’s work.
After the trial, eight jurors told Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan that they would have unanimously decided in favor of Eden if the case went forward, says juror Dianne Andrews of Glenwillow. They were prepared to award Eden $5 million or more in economic and punitive damages.
Jurors viewed the station as an “old-boys network ganging up” on Eden, explains Andrews, a professor and counselor at Lakeland Community College. She was particularly unsettled by the defense’s tactic of probing Eden’s Jewish identity.
For example, notes Andrews, the defense asked Eden if he drove on Shabbat, which is prohibited under the strictures of Orthodox Judaism, and if he kept kosher. (Eden says he identifies as Orthodox and is a member of Congregation Kehillat Yaakov.)
Eden was also asked several more esoteric questions about his faith, such as the definition of specific mitzvot (commandments). “It was like asking me how ‘black’ I am,” says Andrews, who is African-American. “The case was not about how ‘Jewish’ Mr. Eden was. It was clear he was wronged.”
William Edwards, the station’s lawyer, said in a prepared statement, “It was in the best interest of everyone involved to resolve the matter privately and put an end to it.”
Eden is also ready to move on, but it hasn’t been an easy process. He was disappointed that he was never contacted by any local Jewish organizations or by the Anti-Defamation League. One group that did back him was the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), headed by former U.S. Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar.
Eden hopes to return one day to the Cleveland media scene. He has not spoken to his former bosses at WOIO, nor does he plan to. “There’s nothing to talk about at this point,” he says.
If Eden has learned any lessons over the last year, it’s this one, he maintains: “When you know you’re right, you fight for it.”
dguth@cjn.org
Eden, a former WOIO Channel 19 managing editor, says he has done his best to live by Hillel’s famous words over the last “stressful, lonely” 12 months when the wrongful dismissal suit he filed against his ex-employer effectively consumed his world.
After losing his job in 2006, Eden sued the station and its top executives for wrongful termination. He accused station officials of retaliating against him for filing a complaint against a co-worker who made an anti-Semitic remark.
“You can’t come between a Jew and his money,” said the co-worker, Ryan Minnaugh, a family friend of station manager William Applegate.
On Dec. 4, Eden, who is Jewish, received what he calls “vindication” for his complaint in the form of a mid-trial settlement that ended the suit against the television station. “This was the biggest fight of my life,” Eden said during an interview on Monday. “I did what I thought was right.”
Terms of the resolution were kept confidential by mutual agreement. However, Andrew Kabat, Eden’s attorney, told the CJN that he and his client “are extremely pleased with the settlement.”
By standing up for himself, Eden, 55, believes he also stood up for others who have been similarly “mistreated” by powerful corporations.
The anti-Semitic remark wasn’t the only questionable behavior the former editor observed. On Martin Luther King Day, newsroom employees were offered Oreo cookies as a “joke,” Eden says. And black staffers at the station were told “white male anchors are an endangered species.” According to court documents, Eden also complained to his bosses about his coworkers taking part in on-the-job gambling.
The defense argued that Eden, a former editor of The Plain Dealer and the Free Times alternative news weekly, was fired after two years at WOIO for poor work performance. Kabat countered that his client received a promotion to executive producer of the noon and evening newscasts shortly before he was fired in June 2006. Assistant news director B.J. Finnell, who served as Eden’s supervisor, testified during the trial that he had no complaints with Eden’s work.
After the trial, eight jurors told Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Corrigan that they would have unanimously decided in favor of Eden if the case went forward, says juror Dianne Andrews of Glenwillow. They were prepared to award Eden $5 million or more in economic and punitive damages.
Jurors viewed the station as an “old-boys network ganging up” on Eden, explains Andrews, a professor and counselor at Lakeland Community College. She was particularly unsettled by the defense’s tactic of probing Eden’s Jewish identity.
For example, notes Andrews, the defense asked Eden if he drove on Shabbat, which is prohibited under the strictures of Orthodox Judaism, and if he kept kosher. (Eden says he identifies as Orthodox and is a member of Congregation Kehillat Yaakov.)
Eden was also asked several more esoteric questions about his faith, such as the definition of specific mitzvot (commandments). “It was like asking me how ‘black’ I am,” says Andrews, who is African-American. “The case was not about how ‘Jewish’ Mr. Eden was. It was clear he was wronged.”
William Edwards, the station’s lawyer, said in a prepared statement, “It was in the best interest of everyone involved to resolve the matter privately and put an end to it.”
Eden is also ready to move on, but it hasn’t been an easy process. He was disappointed that he was never contacted by any local Jewish organizations or by the Anti-Defamation League. One group that did back him was the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), headed by former U.S. Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar.
Eden hopes to return one day to the Cleveland media scene. He has not spoken to his former bosses at WOIO, nor does he plan to. “There’s nothing to talk about at this point,” he says.
If Eden has learned any lessons over the last year, it’s this one, he maintains: “When you know you’re right, you fight for it.”
dguth@cjn.org
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