Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994                   TAG: 9406050023
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                                LENGTH: Medium

EX-TROOPER SUES IN FIRING FOR OBESITY

Doretha E. Smaw, who stands 5 feet 10 inches and weighs 266 pounds, served on the state force for nine years.

Smaw claims in the lawsuit that her firing was a violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, asks that Smaw be reinstated and that she be awarded $1 million in punitive damages.

"This is an issue that needs to be settled," Smaw said. "I never felt like I would be a symbol for overweight people, but I feel that way now."

Her attorney, Harold Barnes, said obesity is not one of the disabilities specifically protected by the act. But the act applies if the employer treats obesity as if it were a disability, he said.

Barnes said state police hired Smaw in July 1982, knowing that she exceeded the allowable weight for her height by about 20 pounds.

"They hired her as a trooper, based on her performance, which was outstanding," Barnes said. "There were no contingencies."

While working as a trooper Smaw wasn't afraid to throw her size and weight around.

She once pinned an unruly drunk against a patrol car. Another time, Smaw, 41, ran down an armed felon. When a troublesome driver refused to come along peacefully, she wrestled him into a roadside ditch.

Rather than being a liability, Smaw said, her weight was something she began to rely on.

But by 1991, Smaw's supervisors had decided that her height-and-weight ratio was no longer acceptable. She was obese, her supervisors said, and Smaw was fired.

Smaw got her first notice in April 1983 and the notices kept coming.

She would lose a few pounds and then gain them back. She tried exercising and nutrition programs but nothing worked.

Doctors finally discovered that she has a thyroid condition that slows her metabolism and causes her to gain weight. But she was fired before doctors found the problem.

In October 1991 the state police conceded that there were mitigating circumstances in Smaw's case and reinstated her as a radio dispatcher in Chesapeake.

She says the new assignment came with a $1,500 pay cut and was a humiliating change for someone who had been a trooper for nine years.

State police Superintendent Wayne Huggins, who was installed in April, said one of his first administrative decisions was to remove weight control from the discipline program.

He said that under the new system, Smaw would not have lost her job because of her weight problem.