Ex-engineering manager says he was fired for being white
Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
Published November 17, 2006 at midnight
COLORADO SPRINGS - A former manager of a janitorial company has filed suit against the firm, saying he was fired because he is white and the company replaced him and others with Hispanics.
Steven Pagel filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against Aspen Diversified Industries of Colorado Springs, a company that provides janitorial, maintenance, food service and construction services, employing workers with mental illness alongside able-bodied employees in its work force.
Pagel, the former director of engineering and construction services for the company, filed the lawsuit in August 2005, claiming that he was fired when he refused to take a demotion to a lesser job.
Pagel claimed that the company attempted to move him out of his job to give it to a Hispanic and that the company had a "practice of eliminating non-Hispanic individuals, particularly in management positions, and replacing them with individuals of Hispanic origin."
Aspen officials denied the charges in Pagel's lawsuit Thursday.
"He wasn't fired. He was offered a lateral move to another position that we felt he was more competent for, and he refused that position and quit," said company attorney Bill Landsberg.
Aspen was expanding and reorganizing its business at the time, Landsberg said.
Pagel "demonstrated that he did not have the ability to handle the larger construction projects that the company was undertaking," the company's legal response to Pagel's lawsuit states.
"Mr. Pagel was replaced in the position of general contractor by an individual with a master's degree and more extensive complex construction management experience," the company's response states.
Landsburg also denied Pagel's allegations of discrimination.
A pretrial conference is scheduled Dec. 22 in Denver.
Featured
-
2008 Voter’s Guide
Use our Ballot Builder tool to compare your viewpoints to the candidates.
-
A Dozen on Denver
Sandra Dallas wrote 'Lennie's tavern' for our ongoing fiction series. Check it out!
-
Rocky Multimedia
The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on today's events.
-
Bronco Dean's rant
Listen to Bronco Dean's totally biased pregame rant about the Broncos-Jaguars game.
-
Presidential Elections
See how Colorado counties have voted through the years.
-
County election profiles
A look at how residents in each Colorado county may vote.
-
A dream fulfilled
A Rocky Mountain News and MediaStorm production
-
Latest from Dove Valley
Click for more broncos videos.
-
Sam Adams' Open Mic
No. 44 means a lot to Floyd Little
Post your comment
Registration is required. Click here to create your free user account, or login below.
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.