By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – A job discrimination lawsuit involving the state Department of Transportation has paid out more than 40 of the 46 million dollars that was awarded. In the suit, black plaintiffs accused the state of discriminating against them in hiring and promotions. Plaintiffs attorney Russell Adams says the agreement stated that the payments would be distributed to 25 hundred black DOT workers...but he says only 18 hundred of the plaintiffs met the filing deadline. Attorney Scott Clark says about 13-hundred white workers have also received payments of more than eight million dollars under the suit. Both attorneys also maintain that the state has not made almost two dozen reforms that were designed to make hiring and promotion tests more fair and job-related. What's known as the "Johnny Reynolds" lawsuit was filed in 1985 in Montgomery federal court. It has cost the state at least 150 million dollars overall.