Attorneys are seeking approval of a settlement on Marva Scott’s lawsuit against the county, sheriff, commissioners and the DSS board.

By BOB HIGH and
NICOLE CARTRETTE

County commissioners tonight will be asked to approve an apparent settlement of Director of Social Services Marva Scott’s lawsuit against the board of commissioners, the county, Sheriff Chris Batten, and the Department of Social Services’ board.

The News Reporter has learned attorneys have signed an agreement awarding Scott $195,000 in her federal action. It is not clear if the county’s insurance firm pays the entire amount, or the county must pick up $5,000 of the total because of its policy deductible clause.

Most commissioners didn’t wish to address the issue prior to tonight’s session, but David Dutton was vocally upset. “My position is we did nothing wrong. How can you reward someone when you haven’t done anything?

“You can sue the Pope for being the Pope?” Dutton declared. “I will have a lot to say Monday, and if I don’t like what’s going on in the closed session we’re going to talk about it in the open part of the meeting,” Dutton added.

“I can’t tell you anything. I knew they were in deliberation,” Commissioner Amon McKenzie said. McKenzie, also chairman of the Department of Social Services’ board, said he was “remaining neutral” until he had more information.

No comment

Commissioners Lynwood Norris, Sammie Jacobs, Kip Godwin and Bill Memory didn’t want to comment. “After I hear the discussion Monday night I’ll will be ready to comment,” Norris declared.

“I would rather not comment,” Jacobs said.
“I really don’t have any comment right now,” Godwin added.

“It’s a legal matter and as such I have no comment,” Memory noted.

Commissioner James Prevatte could not be reached.

Sheriff Batten did not wish to comment, nor did Scott. She said she would attend the meeting as a department head and because of her interest in the lawsuit.

Attorney Jim Morgan, a member of the Womble, Carlyle law firm’s Winston-Salem office who handled the lawsuit for the county, did not return repeated phone calls.

Kenneth Skipper, chairman of the DSS board during most of the time in question, said, “I have no knowledge of it (the settlement),” and said he would attend Monday night.

Scott sued last year after a series of events in 2004 and 2005 that she claimed ruined her reputation and opened her to ridicule, disgrace and … “impeached her in her trade and profession.”

Retaliation

The DSS director claimed in her lawsuit that her 30-day suspension in the spring of 2005 and other actions by the defendants were retaliation for her “blowing the whistle” on the county’s pay raise study in July 2004.

She told commissioners that the board’s $8,000 study used data that was 10 years old and did not take into account DSS positions where information about such positions was available in the Internet. Scott called the study a waste of money.

Her lawsuit claimed that after her comments Memory expressed anger at Scott’s disclosure of the problems with the salary study. She claimed in her action that commissioners began a series of retaliatory actions after the July 2004 incident.

Scott claimed Batten went to a DSS board meeting in April 2005 and told the board the SBI was investigating DSS and recommended Scott be suspended for 30 days.

The morning after the DSS meeting, Scott – acting on the recommendation of state DSS officials, she claimed – reported files missing from her office, although no forcible entry had been made to her office.

Batten shut down the county department for that day as he and his staff sought to investigate the report of the missing files. The files were found in her briefcase.

Within hours, Batten and the SBI issued a joint statement that said there was no SBI investigation. Scott also claimed that a sheriff’s deputy was removed from the DSS building after a dispute with Batten over who would have control of the deputy.

Plus, Scott’s lawsuit claimed the county would not reclassify five DSS positions for the purpose of pay after she informed them of the problems with the pay study.