One Year Ago Today (October 28, 2021)…A jury awarded $1.2 million to a Los Angeles police sergeant who said he was denied promotions because he had filed a previous lawsuit against the city accusing a supervisor of sexual harassment.
The Los Angeles Superior Court panel deliberated for about a two days before finding on Wednesday that Sgt. Richard Joaquin had proven his claim for retaliation.
The LAPD hired Joaquin in 1988. In 2005, a sergeant began making unwanted advances toward the plaintiff, who was then a police officer, the suit stated. Joaquin’s subsequent complaint against the sergeant resulted in the plaintiff being fired, but he was ordered reinstated by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, according to the suit.
Joaquin sued the city for sexual harassment and retaliation in 2006 and a jury in the trial of the first suit awarded him $2 million in 2010, but a panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned the verdict two years later.
Joaquin was promoted to sergeant in 2012. He maintained in his second suit filed in October 2015 that he was denied promotions and lateral transfers for having filed the previous lawsuit, including a Transit Services Bureau field supervisor position that would have earned him guaranteed overtime pay.
Lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office countered that Joaquin’s promotion to sergeant severed any link between his sexual harassment complaints and his inability to obtain other positions he sought.