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WP | Paul Sprenger, lawyer for female miners in case that inspired “North Country,” dies

HomeNieuwsWP | Paul Sprenger, lawyer for female miners in case that inspired...
paul sprenger
Paul Sprenger is shown here outside his Washington office in 1996. (Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post)

Paul Sprenger, a Washington lawyer who obtained multimillion-dollar settlements on behalf of women, minorities and aging workers in class-action lawsuits, most notably the case of female Minnesota miners that inspired the 2005 film “North Country,” died Dec. 29 while snorkeling off a beach in Curaçao. He was 74.

The cause was an apparent heart attack, said his wife, Jane Lang. Mr. Sprenger also had Parkinson’s disease and recurring prostate cancer.

For many years, he and his wife operated Sprenger and Lang, a Washington-based law firm with an extensive practice in Mr. Sprenger’s home state of Minnesota. Outside their legal practice, they became cultural philanthropists in the District. Working with her husband, Lang founded the Atlas Performing Arts Center that became a cornerstone of the rejuvenated H Street neighborhood in Northeast Washington.

Mr. Sprenger was nationally known for his work involving employment discrimination and particularly class-action lawsuits. In such cases, one or more named plaintiffs pursue a complaint on behalf of a larger group, or “class,” whose members are alleged to have suffered the same harm.

His most noted case, litigated over more than a decade in the 1980s and 1990s, involved the Eveleth iron mine in Minnesota. He and Lang represented Lois Jenson, the case’s most visible client, and other female mine employees who alleged that they had been sexually harassed at work.

The women testified that they had been exposed to lewd language and graffiti and that they were groped and threatened with rape. When they reported such incidents to union and management officials, they said, little if anything was done in response.

In 1988, Mr. Sprenger filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court. For the case to proceed, a judge had to “certify” the class, essentially finding that so many women had been affected by the alleged misconduct that the matter could be handled as a class action, rather than as a series of individual lawsuits.

In 1991, U.S. District Court Judge James M. Rosenbaum made that ruling. Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. was reported to be the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the United States.

The case slowly made its way through the court system. In 1998, the parties reached a confidential settlement. According to some accounts, the settlement was for $3.5 million; other accounts estimated that the total cost to the company and its insurers reached $15 million.

Bron: Washingtonpost

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