GALVESTON — An attorney fined $17,776 by federal district Judge Samuel Kent on Tuesday said he planned to appeal.
Kent on Monday imposed the sanctions on attorney Anthony Griffin and his client, Sonia Boone, a former public school administrator who sued the Galveston Independent School District for racial discrimination.
Kent, who dismissed the case in January, called it “one of the most abusive in the system that this court has seen in its entire 13-year tenure.”
“This attorney, and all others similarly situated, must be made to realize that abusive manipulation of the legal system and attempts to legally extort money from public institutions, with no basis in law or fact, must and will be appropriately rebuked,” he said.
Griffin said the lawsuit had merit.
“I haven’t read it (Kent’s ruling), but I disagree,” he said.
Boone, a former school district employee who served most recently as director of Bilingual/ESL Education, is black. She claimed discrepancies in her salary were motivated by racial discrimination.
Kent granted the district’s motion to summarily dismiss the lawsuit and allowed the district to file a motion for sanctions.
A similar lawsuit filed by Griffin on behalf of Patricia Williams in 2002 also was dismissed by Kent, a decision that held up on appeal.
“These frivolous lawsuits tie up staff time and taxpayers’ money and hinders our ability to do what is most important, which is educating our children,” district Superintendent Lynn Hale said.
The fines may be a shot across the bow to discourage another lawsuit that may be coming down the pike.
The district’s administration this year decided not to renew Williams’ employment contract.
Williams, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction and also head of the island NAACP, has a protest of the district’s decision pending before the Texas Education Agency.
