A prison guard who claimed she was retaliated against and ultimately fired for preventing another guard from assaulting an inmate is not barred from bringing a civil rights suit, a federal judge has ruled, despite an arbitrator’s decision that her firing was appropriate.
In Kowaleski v. Lewis, 6:06-cv-796, Northern District Judge David N. Hurd held that Corrections Officer Barbara Kowaleski did not have a “full and fair opportunity to litigate” her case during arbitration and had shown that “a possibility of class-based different treatment without a rational basis for such treatment” existed.
