Attorney Roxanne Conlin reacts to Iowa Civil Rights Commission’s dismissal of case brought by female inmate

Like many Iowa inmates, Melissa Renda had a job while serving her sentence. She had responsibilities, co-workers, bosses and made a wage. And just like any other job, she shouldn’t have been subjected to sexual harassment, threats and retaliation from her supervisors ( corrections officers in this case). Yet, the Iowa Civil Rights Commission dismissed Melissa’s complaint. The Commission did not consider Melissa an employee for the purposes of the Iowa Civil Rights Act, because she was an inmate.

I didn’t think this was right. We appealed the case through the district court to the Iowa Supreme Court and established for the first time that inmates could be considered employees. We had two purposes in bringing this lawsuit. One was to establish prisoner rights under the Iowa Civil Rights Act. We were successful in doing that. The other was to compensate Melissa for harassment and retaliation she suffered. Here we were also successful as the state offered Melissa $25,000, which she felt was sufficient.

Given the size of my client’s settlement, it may seem odd that my law firm was paid $46,000 for this case. I ask you to consider that my staff and I worked on this case for six years, through the Civil Rights Commission, on to the district and Supreme Court, and back again. We spent $21,000 of our money on litigation costs which was part of the money the state paid us back. We were paid 25,000 in fees. We dedicated hours that would have generated approximately $250,000 in attorney’s fees in other circumstances. I am very proud to have represented this courageous woman who changed the landscape of the law for the better. This was a fight that from the beginning was focused on protecting rights.

Roxanne Conlin

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Complaint can be found here.