PHILADELPHIA (Legal Newsline) - A high-ranking U.S. Department of Labor attorney in Pennsylvania was actually exiled to D.C. as he was simultaneously disparaging opposing counsel as "Washington lawyers" in a $22 million case in Philadelphia.
While that is one of the more amusing allegations brought forth in a lawsuit against the Labor Department and acting secretary Julie Su, it hardly tells the whole story of how East Penn Manufacturing came to be on the wrong end of an eight-figure verdict.
That case concerned back pay owed to the battery manufacturer's employees who said they should have been paid for the time they spent changing clothes and showering before and after their shifts.
But East Penn's July 16 lawsuit in Philadelphia federal court claims former regional solicitor Oscar Hampton had already lost his job when he took the case to trial, then lied to the court about it.
It adds the timing of the DOL's response to Hampton's own lawsuit against the agency seems to have been orchestrated to prevent East Penn from including key information as it appeals the judgment against it.
"The conduct was egregious enough to set aside the judgment in the prior action," East Penn says.
Hampton was found by a DOL review board to have been fired for bullying his staff, though he claimed he was retaliated against because he is Black. This order took months to come to light, until the DOL included it in its response to Hampton's lawsuit in June.
Obviously this caught the attention of East Penn, which had previously been unaware that Hampton had been removed from his post, sentenced to a desk in D.C. and was the subject of an DOL internal investigation that produced a 1,102-page report.
East Penn's first count: Fraud on the court and jury.
"The conduct by Mr. Hampton, which he also forced on his subordinate attorneys, was a scheme to interfere with the Court's judicial machinery performing the task of impartial adjudication," the suit says, "and insofar as it involved unethical discovery abuses and misrepresentations to the Court and jury of Mr. Hampton's title and place of work, prevented East Penn from fairly presenting its defense.
The case against East Penn began in 2018, with federal judge Gene Pratter saying the years that followed led to "pre-trial free-wheeling accusations, recriminations, challenges, combative and costly discovery and legal head-butting leading to Proustian piles of paper and a two-month trial."
It was in May 2023 that the jury in her court ordered $22.2 million in back pay but refused to double that amount with liquidated damages, an option in DOL cases in which the company's conduct is egregious enough. It was at the time the highest jury verdict the DOL had ever scored.
However, six months earlier Hampton had been removed from his post and sent to D.C. for field office detail as a result of claims of bullying from many staff members who said they were punished for disagreeing with him, among other claims.
Hampton, who had worked for the DOL since 1989, complained he "essentially was demoted to a staff attorney."
That didn't stop him from repeatedly telling jurors he was still the regional solicitor in Philadelphia - "Secretaries come and go but I'm always here and have been the entire time on this case."
Part of his strategy with his "hometown" jurors was to portray attorneys representing East Penn as carpetbaggers, the company says. The complaint notes multiple instances when Hampton went out of his way to call East Penn's counsel "Washington lawyers," like:
-"The grace period was, again, a concoction made out of whole cloth from the Washington lawyers";
-"And they came up with this explanation only after hiring their Washington lawyers"; and
-"East Penn has better resources [than the U.S. government], that they can pay for the best Washington lawyers."
Three weeks after the verdict, Hampton was removed as counsel through a no-contact order and later fired. East Penn filed post-trial motions and is appealing to the Third Circuit.
While those motions were pending, his name still appeared on documents in the East Penn case. Four months after the verdict, Pratter told a DOL lawyer that he "should tell Mr. Hampton" about something in the case.
That DOL lawyer's response was "Certainly, Your Honor," neglecting to tell Pratter that Hampton was no longer involved in it.
"(T)his concealment was so that neither East Penn nor Judge Pratter would know (about the no-contact order) at the time of the hearing," East Penn says.
DOL's review board wrapped up the agency's handling of Hampton's discrimination and hostile work environment claims on Oct. 25. He had filed a formal complaint Feb. 2, 2023, weeks before the East Penn trial started, and officially fired Sept. 12.
The board found he was fired for cause, as he had repeatedly intimidated and bullied staff, plus made questionable charges on his company credit card.
Two weeks after the board's ruling, Hampton went to D.C. federal court for an employment discrimination lawsuit.
East Penn questions the timing of these events and its effect on its post-trial efforts. Hampton was fired one week after Pratter heard oral arguments on post-trial motions, then the DOL multiple times asked for more time to respond to Hampton's lawsuit.
Those extensions were granted, leading to a DOL motion to dismiss June 10.
"Through three extensions of time over seven months, the Secretary's response to Mr. Hampton's complaint ended up being 10 days outside of the one-year period in (the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) to set aside the judgment," East Penn says.
"This had the practical effect of ensuring that anything said by the Secretary in her filing could only be used by East Penn in an independent action to set aside the judgment."
Su and the DOL attached their review board's finding that Hampton was fired for cause, something East Penn hadn't yet known about.
"The Final Agency Decision is a remarkable document," East Penn says. "Not only does it discuss Mr. Hampton's misconduct throughout its 48 pages, but it reveals that the Department also has in its files (not yet publicly disclosed) a Report of Investigation that is at least 1,02 pages long."