TBN Age Discrimination Lawsuit Settled: Employment Class Action May Be in Offing

http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2012/06/02/settlement-reached-in-tbn-age-discrimination-case/156029/

Settlement reached in TBN age discrimination case

We told you this week that Horst Brandt, a man of German descent who oversaw Trinity Broadcasting Network’s computer systems, filed a lawsuit charging the TV ministry with age discrimination, among other things.

In addition to hiring Brandt as an independent contractor rather than a regular employee (which is cheaper for TBN), and in addition to slurs referencing Brandt’s national origin (“Horst runs his department like Nazi Germany during World War II”), the suit maintained that Trinity fired fired Brandt because he was getting long in the tooth.

Network bigwigs (such as Paul and Jan Crouch, left) referred to Brandt as “an old dinosaur,” the building where Brandt worked was regularly referred to as “the old folks home,” and senior officials were seeking ways to shave older workers off the payroll, according to statements filed by Crouch granddaughter Brittany Koper, who was then head of human resources for Trinity.

Trinity denied the allegations and filed a cross-complaint against Brandt, accusing him of breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Well, after a year of courtroom wrangling, the parties reached a settlement this week. The deal is confidential, and our requests for detail were met with silence from the attorneys directly involved.

We did, however, get an electronic earful from Tymothy MacLeod, who is representing Brittany Koper as she accuses the world’s largest Christian broadcaster of playing fast and loose with the ministry’s millions.

MacLeod notes that the settlement notice “does not specify how much TBN paid Mr. Brandt, and it doesn’t surprise me that TBN wants to avoid broadcasting the fact that they are willing to compromise employment claims like Mr. Brandt’s,” he told us in an email that continued thusly:

“For years, TBN had maintained a bully reputation in the OC employment law community as unyielding and relentless in their defense of employment disputes. TBN spent exorbitant amounts of its ‘charitable’ proceeds on lawyers to achieve that reputation for one purpose: to send a message of intimidation to its own employees. Yet, TBN in-house counsel John Casoria’s uncompromising reputation is a sham, like so much at TBN.

“I hope that TBN’s employees, along with the plaintiff’s bar in Orange County, take notice of this settlement. It is, I think, symbolic of things to come. Mr. Brandt was able to find very decent attorneys, who were not only excellent litigators, but also honest. From my observations, the Feldman firm put Mr. Brandt’s interests first and achieved a settlement for him, rather than pursuing the class action storm that is brewing here. Yet, TBN’s discriminatory policies toward elderly employees – as reflected in the recent settlement with Mr. Brandt – need to be redressed on a larger scale. TBN’s former HR director, Brittany Koper, testified about that pattern of discrimination by TBN against aging employees in the Brandt matter, as well as the underpinnings of those policies in TBN’s self-funded insurance schemes. Ms. Koper has previously explained in court records how TBN’s founder expenses his private chauffeur as a ‘medical benefit,’ while the company pushes other elderly employees to leave TBN before they become a ‘drain’ on TBN’s self-funded medical plan. That is simply despicable, and I am proud to have stood by Ms. Koper while she helped do something to right that wrong in Horst Brandt’s case.

”The bottom line is that there is a lot of work here for employment attorneys in Orange County, and TBN employees should no longer be intimidated to do something about their situation.”

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