27-Year Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Still Ongoing

In what may be one of the most protracted lawsuits in the history of American law, the District of Columbia continues to fight a sexual discrimination claim filed 27 years ago. Deborah Jean Bryant filed the complaint accusing her supervisor at the D.C. Department of Corrections of denying her a promotion because she refused his sexual advances. In 1992, the director of the city’s Department of Human Rights and Minority Business Development (a department which no longer exists) ruled in her favor. The fight that continues to this day is a dispute over what Bryant is owed – including three decades of interest. The case has been heard by nine judges, and is about to go before a 10^th. The same attorney, Robert Adler, has stood by Bryant the entire time. “Civil litigation will often take five or even 10 years to resolve, but anything stretching into two decades starts to qualify as a kind of legendary delay,” J.H. Verkerke, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, told the Washington Post. “It does sound like – pardon my French – a s—show.” Bryant told the Post that she perseveres for one simple reason: “I’m still fighting because I was wronged,” she said. “I’m the type of person that if you’re wrong, I’ll tell you you’re wrong.”