A King County Superior Court jury ruled that the Port of Seattle must pay $16 million to two former port employees after they were wrongfully fired for what the Port claimed at the time to be misuse of their official e-mail.

The employees, Deanna Zachrisson and Elaine Lincoln, filed a wrongful termination suit against the port after it fired them in 2015. The hoopla began when emails of Zachrisson and Lincoln's, in which they called a black airport vendor a "thug," appeared in a racial discrimination lawsuit brought by three minority-owned businesses. Zachrisson and Lincoln worked as senior officials in the airport retail and dining department at the time. A port investigation concluded that there was no evidence of racial bias in Zachrisson and Lincoln's behavior. The port fired the employees for allegedly violating the port's e-mail policy anyway.

In the subsequent wrongful termination suit, Zachrisson and Lincoln's lawyers argued that their termination primarily resulted from the grudges of one port commissioner, John Creighton, who brought the e-mails to port staff's attention and demanded they be fired.

Lawyers for Zachrisson and Lincoln argued that they were terminated because they were whistleblowers to the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2012, Port Commissioner Creighton had drafted an ordinance favorable to some minority-owned businesses at the port, businesses that also contributed to his campaign, and Zachrisson and Lincoln alerted the port that it could risk its FAA funding because of FAA rules against preferential treatment. Zachrisson and Lincoln alerted the FAA, too, and the FAA sent the port a letter admonishing Creighton's motion. Zachrisson and Lincoln filed an ethics complaint against Creighton, and spoke to KING 5 about the issue.

“Now that the voters have spoken and the jury has spoken, we hope that the Port of Seattle will take a hard look at their responsibility and fix the broken system that led to the firing of two dedicated, excellent, and valued employees,” Lincoln said in a statement released to reporters.

“Our community needs more employees who refuse to stay silent and will stand up for the law,” Zachrisson said in the same press release. “We hope this verdict will encourage others in powerful organizations to speak up when they see something that is not right."

But not all port commissioners agree that the employees were wrongfully terminated.

"I stand by the port's decision to fire the employees," port commissioner Fred Felleman told The Stranger, "for racial disparagement."

The employees weren't fired for racial disparagement, but Felleman felt that they should have been.

"John was just trying to help minority-owned businesses at the port," Felleman said. "The port doesn't do enough, and we need to do more."

Eddie Rye Jr., a member of the Washington Civil Rights Coalition, agreed that the two employees should have been fired for racial animus, contrary to what the port investigation concluded.

"A lot of people in communities of color were very concerned with the fact they were not fired for racial animus," Rye said. "If they were fired for racial animus, they wouldn't have won anything. That's why [the port] lost the case."

Rye also stressed disparities that continue at the port. In a memo released this summer, the port acknowledged that it had failed to meet its own goals and other public sectors' standards in contracting with women and minority-owned businesses. Last year, the 5.3 percent of the port's contracts were with women and minority-owned businesses, compared to other public sectors' 12 to 16 percent. That same year, the Port awarded just 1.2 percent of its small business contracting dollars to Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs), a federal designation and state certified program for women and minority-owned businesses and other economically disadvantaged individuals. Early this year, the FAA reported that despite the fact that Seattle has received $45 million in FAA grant funds (which require airports to participate in DBE programs), the Seattle airport hasn't met its DBE goals since 2013. The port has also been trying to achieve equity while working around a state law that criminalizes affirmative action.

Meanwhile, John Creighton, the subject of much of the trial, said that his name and reputation had been "unfairly dragged through the mud during this entire process with innuendo and half-truths."

"As an elected Port Commissioner, I have been deeply committed to equality," Creighton's statement continued. "I have no tolerance for discriminatory behavior or racist actions. During my tenure on the Commission I worked to make sure that the Port was free from racism and bias, and that everyone feels welcome here."

Creighton added that he stood by the port's decision to fire the two women over "the Port's policy of zero tolerance in effect since 2007 in disparaging Port tenants and employees over e-mail."

Of the $16 million, the court awarded $7,614,243 to Zachrisson and $8,897,099 to Lincoln.