A retired Kansas City Fire Department battalion chief is set to receive an $850,000 settlement for dropping a lawsuit that claims he was denied a promotion due to his race and gender.

Daniel McGrath, who is white, retired in January at the rank of battalion chief. Former Fire Chief Donna Lake gave the deputy chief’s job that McGrath was seeking in 2022 to a Black fire captain who McGrath alleges was less qualified.

The lawsuit claims that Lake signaled her intentions to pass McGrath and others for promotion when she allegedly told a top subordinate that “the days of the Fire Department being ran by older white men are over.”

As context, Lake, who is white, was the department’s first and so far only woman fire chief. A year before the deputy chief’s position opened up, Lake and the city’s elected leaders pledged to make reforms in hiring, promotions and work conditions that were discriminatory toward women and non-white men within the department.

The city settled two related lawsuits in August that were filed by white battalion chiefs who claimed that they, too, were passed over for the same deputy chief position.

Two related payouts

Mark Little and Christopher McDaniel were paid $350,000 each, so the combined total of payouts to settle litigation on this single hiring dispute will total $1.5 million, if the City Council approves McGrath’s settlement as expected next week. The city’s law department and risk management committee recommended approval.

McGrath’s is the latest in a costly string of settlements related to discrimination within the Fire Department that the city has paid out in less than two years.

This fall, the council approved a $1.3 million settlement to compensate a 61-year-old Kansas City firefighter and paramedic who endured years of mistreatment and abuse from male co-workers and her superiors because she was a woman, a lesbian and older than most of her peers when she graduated from the fire academy at age 40.

A male co-worker was charged with a felony for urinating on items within her office while she was away.

A year ago, Kansas City spent $800,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an assistant division chief who alleged she was subjected to ongoing harassment in the three years before her resignation in 2023.

Combined, fire department discrimination settlements reached over the past year total $3.65 million, far exceeding the $2.5 million that The Star’s 2020 investigation found that the city had paid out in judgments, attorney fees and court costs for discrimination cases during the preceding 20 years.

Recently, the city and the firefighters union agreed to a new five-year labor contract that would put limits on the rights of future members of the department to file discrimination lawsuits.

Those in the Local 42 bargaining unit hired after next May must have most discrimination claims adjudicated through arbitration, a process that experts claim favors employers over employees.

That would not apply to battalion chiefs, who have their own union. Those in higher ranks do not have union representation.

Conclusion

We are all made in God’s image, so why do we continue to determine stature based on our outward reflection, when we all reflect God’s image and not our inward direction?  Our attitude, vision, education, experience are the attributes that differentiate us from other employees. This is merit based hiring.

How about we hire people that can do the best job for the people they serve?  Why don’t we try that.  This is a fire department folks.  When my property is on fire, I do not care what sex or race you are, as long as you are the best at putting out the fire and saving our lives.

If you need an attorney to put out a fire or help save your legal life, please give us a call at Winslow Law 843-357-9301.

May God Bless You, Your Business, and the United States of America,

Tom Winslow

COMMITTED COUNSELORS FOR OUR CLIENTS AND OUR COMMUNITY.

Written by

Tom Winslow

and

Mike Hendricks