THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040212
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: CHESAPEAKE
And during nine years on the state force - most of it in Isle of Wight County - Smaw wasn't hesitant to throw her size and weight around.
{REST} She once pinned an unruly drunk against a patrol car. Another time, Smaw ran down an armed felon. When a troublesome driver refused to come along peacefully, Smaw wrestled him into a roadside ditch.
Smaw learned firsthand that being physically imposing is often an advantage for a police officer. And occasionally, Smaw said, the extra weight actually made the difference between success and failure.
``I once pushed this fellow to the ground and put my knee on his chest,'' Smaw said during an interview Thursday. ``I knew when my weight was on him he wouldn't go anywhere.''
It's the kind of collar that many male state troopers would find difficult. That Smaw is a woman only makes it more impressive.
Rather than a liability, her weight, Smaw said, was something she began to rely on.
``While I was on the road, I always thought my weight was an asset,'' the 41-year-old Smaw said.
But by 1991, Smaw's supervisors with the Virginia State Police had decided that her height-and-weight ratio was no longer acceptable. She was obese, her supervisors said, and Smaw was fired.
Now she is fighting to get her job back. This week, Smaw and her Suffolk attorney, Harold Barnes, served the state police with a lawsuit claiming that Smaw's firing was a violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, asks that Smaw be reinstated and that she be awarded $1 million in punitive damages.
Smaw's motives for the lawsuit, she said, go deeper than the personal benefits she might gain by winning in court.
``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.''
Barnes said that obesity is not one of the disabilities specifically protected by the act. But if the employer treats obesity as if it were a disability, then the act, Barnes said, applies.
Barnes said he will use as a precedent a federal case heard in Rhode Island. He said the ruling in that suit was in favor of the plaintiff, who suffered job discrimination because of weight.
Barnes said the 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.''
Even when Smaw got her first notice - in April 1983 - that she had a weight problem, she did not consider it anything to worry about.
``Everybody who was a little overweight was getting them,'' she said.
But the notices from state police headquarters kept coming, and Smaw got on a roller coaster of weight fluctuation.
She would lose a few pounds and then gain them back. She tried exercising and nutrition programs. The would help for a while, but anything that disrupted her routine, such as a special assignment in another part of the state, would make dieting almost impossible, she said.
The letters of reprimand began to include suspensions. The reason was always the same: Smaw had failed to meet specified weight requirements.
Even after the state police began measuring body fat to help determine how much a trooper should weigh, Smaw failed to make the grade.
Eventually, Smaw began noticing that her weight would fluctuate even when she watched what she ate and exercised. Smaw began to suspect that something else was causing her to be heavier than she should be.
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. Smaw says the new assignment came with a $1,500 cut in pay and was a humiliating change for someone who had been a trooper for nine years.
State police Superintendent Wayne Huggins, installed in April, said one of his first administrative decisions was to remove weight-control from the discipline program and put in into the health and wellness program.
Huggins said that under the new system, Smaw would not have lost her job because of her weight problem.
``She would have been contacted, but the contact would be under a different perspective,'' Huggins said. ``Weight is best controlled in a positive instead of negative perspective.''
That enlightened approach came too late for Smaw. So Smaw has become something of a martyr.
``I didn't feel I was a bad officer,'' Smaw said. ``I tried to do a good job. Now I want my good name back.''
{KEYWORDS} CHRONOLOGY WEIGHT CONTROL OBESITY VIRGINIA STATE POLICE
by CNB