OMAHA, Neb.—Lucille Kilgore spent nearly 30 years typing up reports, arranging foster home placements and handling other duties as a volunteer at the state’s juvenile parole office.
The Omaha woman, now 87, was never paid nor asked to be paid for her work, which sometimes stretched to 70 hours a week or more.
But in 2004, she sued the state and juvenile parole personnel, alleging she was taken advantage of and overworked.
Nearly a year ago, a Douglas County district judge ruled in her favor and said she was entitled to $447,005.
Now, attorneys for the state want that decision overturned. They argue Kilgore was a volunteer, not an employee, and therefore not entitled to such relief.
The Nebraska Supreme Court will take up arguments on Wednesday.
Kilgore began working on a volunteer, part-time basis for the office in 1974 alongside juvenile parole officer Melvin Washington, according to court documents. She took on more work over the years until the mid-1990s when health problems forced her to work from home. The work continued until 2002.
From the beginning, Kilgore wanted to be a parole officer, despite being told she didn’t have the qualifications. She described her ambitions as like those of a walk-on football player for the Nebraska Cornhuskers—that if she got accepted as a walk-on she might eventually be placed on scholarship.
Kilgore said she became afraid of Washington and his temper beginning in the late 1990s.
She lived by herself, had no children and came to depend on the help of parole officers who took up food collections for her or helped get her to doctors’ appointments, said her attorney, Ray Aranza.
“Simply put, Kilgore volunteered because she feared she would have no food and because she was fearful of what Washington would do to her,” Aranza wrote in court briefs.
A message left at a phone number listed for a Melvin Washington in Omaha was not returned.
State officials argue Kilgore never expected to be hired.
“Clearly, Kilgore wanted to ‘practice with the team’ but she appreciated that any desire she might have of becoming an employee was, in her own mind, fanciful,” attorneys for the state wrote in their reply brief.
She never applied for a job and could have quit at any time, the state argued.
Aranza argues that Kilgore was an employee based on the facts that she “physically and mentally exerted herself in accomplishing the many tasks assigned to her for the benefit of the Juvenile Parole Department.” He further argues that an employee is someone dependent on the employer and that Kilgore depended on the department’s employees.
While Aranza asks the state’s high court to uphold the ruling, he argues in a cross-appeal that the lower court must address Kilgore’s claims of negligence. The state failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to intervene to protect Kilgore from being exploited, and those issues still need to be tried, he said.
The state, meanwhile, argued no one above Kilgore’s immediate supervisor was aware of her activities and the district court found that supervisor didn’t violate her rights.
Upon learning of the situation in 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services directed Kilgore to stop volunteering, launched an investigation and took precautions to protect Kilgore.
State attorneys argue that the lower court’s decision must be reversed or it could create complications for any community group or agency that depends on volunteers.
“This decision, if allowed to stand, will result in permitting anyone who volunteers to complete their service to then come back and request to be paid without any accountability on hours worked or service performed,” the state’s attorneys write.
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