Home Economy Government Report: Former Providence firefighter awarded $1.75M in lawsuit against city

Report: Former Providence firefighter awarded $1.75M in lawsuit against city

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PBN Staff

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04/15/2025

dKKfjIni-9zuRNzNb-DistrictCourt — LORI FRANCHINA, A former Providence firefighter, has been awarded $1.75 million in compensatory damages stemming from a lawsuit against the city for denying her accidental disability benefits, according to a report from WPRI-TV CBS 12. / COURTESY U.S. DISTRICT COURT

PROVIDENCE – A former firefighter has been awarded $1.75 million in compensatory damages stemming from a lawsuit against the city for denying her accidental disability benefits, WPRI-TV CBS 12 reported on Monday. According to WPRI, a U.S. District Court jury ruled the city denied Lori Franchina the benefits because she filed a gender discrimination and retaliation

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PROVIDENCE – A former firefighter has been awarded $1.75 million in compensatory damages stemming from a lawsuit against the city for denying her accidental disability benefits, WPRI-TV CBS 12 reported on Monday. According to WPRI, a U.S. District Court jury ruled the city denied Lori Franchina the benefits because she filed a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit in 2013, which she eventually won in 2016. Franchina, who served as a rescue lieutenant with the Providence Fire Department from 2002-2013, claimed she was targeted because she is a woman and a lesbian. She also claimed she endured years of harassment, lewd nicknames, insubordination and discrimination while quickly moving up in the ranks of the department. Franchina was awarded $806,000 in the 2016 lawsuit. The city unsuccessfully appealed that decision twice. According to court documents, the city in April 2013 applied for Franchina to be “involuntarily retired” with ordinary disability benefits instead of with accidental disability benefits, “despite previously rejecting her retirement application entirely just two years earlier,” WPRI reported. The board granted Franchina ordinary disability pension benefits “with no explanation whatsoever as to what changed their mind since the last application” in December that year. In February 2019, Franchina petitioned to the city’s Retirement Board to reopen her 2011 application in light of the 2016 court verdict. The board again denied Franchina’s motion to reopen the application in January 2020, writing in a decision that Franchina’s claim “had been litigated to conclusion,” according to WPRI. In her own pre-trial memorandum, Franchina stated that was false, and that her petition included “hundreds of pages of exhibits, including sworn testimony from two treating doctors who opined that the workplace harassment caused Franchina’s disability,” according to the report. After a four-day trial, the U.S. District Court jury unanimously decided on April 11 that the city was liable for retaliation and awarded Franchina $1.75 million in compensatory damages. Franchina’s attorney, John T. Martin, told WPRI that the final judgment will likely end up being “three to four times” what she was awarded Friday due to interest and attorney’s fees. “We offered the city to engage in a mediation where we would seek that Lori be provided with a fair trial, and we were willing to waive attorney’s fees and willing to waive back pay; hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars,” Martin said. “They refused to even engage in a mediation with us to discuss the possibility of giving her a fair hearing. So, they absolutely walked into this verdict.” Franchina WPRI she was grateful the case is now nearly behind her, but said the city could have avoided going to court in the first place. “What plays a factor in why a city won’t discipline a few men blows my mind, that you just had to follow the rules and regulations and apply them,” Franchina said. “If they would have just applied those rules that already exist and just common law, this would have never happened.” A spokesperson for Mayor Brett P. Smiley’s office told WPRI that the city was still evaluating the jury’s verdict and determining the next steps.