EDMONDS — Edmonds’ former human resources director has been awarded more than $1 million to cover attorneys costs from her successful federal lawsuit that held a former mayor accountable for defamation and wrongful termination.
The award, memorialized in U.S. District Court in Seattle on June 17, brings to more than $2.1 million the compensation awarded to Debi Humann, who had worked for the city more than a dozen years before being forced out in the fall of 2011.
A federal jury in November found Humann deserved roughly $1 million in damages. Jurors determined she was wrongfully fired and defamed by former Mayor Mike Cooper. Humann maintained Cooper engaged in those behaviors just days after she told him she was cooperating with a state audit of his executive assistant’s timesheeets. Auditors were exploring questions about the aide’s performance in her $79,000-a-year job.
Humann filed her federal lawsuit in January 2013. The trial lasted three weeks. The city unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the result.
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