Featured photo: April Cook-Hawkins
On Friday September 16, 2022, a Genesee County Circuit Court jury rendered a unanimous verdict in favor of April Cook-Hawkins, a former Genesee County employee, in her wrongful discharge case. The jury agreed that Cook-Hawkins, who worked in the County’s Health Department on its Lead Case Management
Team, was illegally fired in 2016 in retaliation for her refusal to participate in falsifying blood lead-level test results for Flint children during the Flint Water Crisis.
The County itself was dismissed from the case, filed in 2019, on the basis of governmental immunity, but the case proceeded against the co-defendant, the now former director of nursing for the Health Department, to whom Ms. Cook-Hawkins reported indirectly.
Cook-Hawkins sought and was awarded emotional distress damages by the jury.
