A Los Angeles police officer who sued the city alleging he was retaliated against for not going along with attempts to discredit a K9 unit trainer who had previously reported what he believed was retaliatory conduct by supervisors can proceed with part of his longrunning lawsuit, a judge has ruled.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas D. Long dismissed Officer Alberto Franco’s discrimination and harassment claims, which the plaintiff’s lawyers conceded should be removed. However, Long said Franco can move to trial on two retaliation causes of action.
“Under the totality of the evidence presented, there are triable issues regarding the reasons for the adverse employment actions,” the judge wrote. “A jury could reasonably infer that these actions were taken in response to the plaintiff’s protected activity of making several reports and complaints.”
Franco was assigned as a handler in the bomb K9 unit, a small, elite detail where jobs are coveted, in part because they include higher pay and more overtime opportunities, the suit filed in July 2020 states.
In late December 2016, Franco’s supervisor contacted him and made derogatory comments about Mark Sauvao, the bomb unit K9 handler and trainer, stating he did not have the plaintiff’s best interests in mind and was not looking out for him, according to the complaint.
The next month, after Franco finished the first part of a mandatory annual Transportation Safety Administration K9 evaluation, he was summoned to the office of a unit lieutenant who told him, “When it’s all over, you and I are going to have a beer, and I will tell you everything. Mark is shady. Just finish your eval and we will do the rest,” according to the complaint.
Franco knew Sauvao had reported the bomb unit K9 supervisors for alleged retaliatory conduct and concluded that the bosses were targeting the trainer, the suit states.
Franco was present during another day of the training and saw an exchange between two unit sergeants with Sauvao while he was being evaluated by the TSA, the suit states. Later, the sergeants made false accusations of serious misconduct by Sauvao and a lieutenant subsequently served the trainer with written discipline based on the allegedly invalid information, according to the suit.
The lieutenant and one of the sergeants “harassed plaintiff to corroborate their false statements in the official reports as they knew plaintiff was an eyewitness to the events giving rise to their false report,” the suit states.
When Franco refused to lie, the lieutenant and sergeant “persisted to badger him, making unlawful racial remarks about the trainer, including, calling him a `big angry Samoan’ and insisting that the trainer had physically assaulted two sergeants,” the suit states.
Franco spoke out against the supervisors’ alleged retaliation against Sauvao and refused to provide false testimony against him, the suit states.
Franco later attended a unit meeting and spoke out in support of Sauvao, after which the lieutenant summoned the plaintiff to his office with one of the sergeants present and said, “You (epithet), you let me down. You threw me under the bus in there. I told you that Mark was dirty, but you had to speak up.”
Over the next several months, the lieutenant and one of the unit sergeants tried to coerce Franco to provide negative evidence about Sauvao, but Franco refused each time, the suit states.
When Franco accidentally missed an overtime assignment, the lieutenant in alleged retaliation banned him from taking part in any overtime opportunities for three months, longer than any other handlers who missed overtime details, the suit states.
The lieutenant later told another handler that Franco had “back-stabbed” him for speaking in favor of Sauvao, the suit states. In addition, one of the sergeants shunned Franco, refused to speak to him and did not reply to his text messages for months, the suit states.
Franco alleges that he was later falsely accused of abusing his K9, Rocky, suspended for 10 days and removed from his advanced pay grade level, all in alleged retaliation for his “protected activity.”
In a sworn declaration, Franco says he suffered a heart attack in June 2024 due to job-related stress and that he also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“The department’s retaliation extended to my home and family,” Franco said. “I continue to suffer from PTSD and the physical manifestations of the stress, including the heart attack I suffered in 2024.
In April 2017, Sauvao was removed from the unit in alleged response to his own reports of discrimination, retaliation and violations of law, according to Franco’s suit. Sauvao filed his own suit against the city in May 2018 and a jury awarded him nearly $12 million in March 2024.
“This verdict vindicated what I had been saying all along — that the supervisors had made false allegations against Sauvao in retaliation for his protected activity and that I was right to refuse to participate in their unlawful scheme,” Franco said.