Jury awards more than $560,000 to 25 Chattanooga police officers in lawsuit

A Chattanooga Police badge placard is seen on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, at the Police Services Center in Chattanooga, Tenn.
A Chattanooga Police badge placard is seen on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, at the Police Services Center in Chattanooga, Tenn.

A jury awarded more than $560,000 in damages today to 25 police officers after finding that the city of Chattanooga failed to give the officers promised raises and failed to maintain fair conditions of employment.

The jury rejected the officers' claim that the city discriminated against them because of their age. The verdict in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2012, came after a weeklong trial.

Officers were collectively awarded $562,953 back pay for the time that they worked without receiving the raises.

The case stemmed from a years-long dispute about the police department's pay policies, which for about seven years allowed recently hired police officers to earn higher salaries than their supervisors.

In 2014, Mayor Andy Berke revamped the police pay structure to try to level the inequities. Although some police union leaders called then for the lawsuit to be settled in the wake of Berke's fix, the case continued to trial last week in Hamilton County Chancery Court.

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