The attorney for five Black Los Angeles Fire Department employees who work within the Fire Prevention Bureau is asking a judge to allow the questioning of jurors in the wake of a verdict in which only two were awarded damages in their longrunning lawsuit alleging the department is governed by a “good old white boys club.”
Arson investigators Leslie Wilkerson, Joseph Smith, Justin Davis, Robert McLoud, Sean Morris and Mario Newte brought the 89-page Los Angeles Superior Court complaint in July 2021, alleging racial discrimination, hostile work environment and failure to prevent harassment, retaliation and discrimination.
The plaintiffs alleged that they were targeted for criticism and denied fair and equal chances for promotions.
Wilkerson and Newte are now retired. In their March 3 verdict, jurors awarded damages only to Newte and Morris with each given just over $600,000.
In court papers filed after the trial with Judge Michael Shultz, plaintiffs’ attorney Nancy P. Doumanian states that the court acknowledged that the changing verdict forms during deliberations may have created confusion and he apologized to the jury.
“Plaintiffs respectfully request juror identifying information solely to determine whether the evolving verdict forms caused confusion affecting the verdict,” Doumanian says, and a hearing on her motion is scheduled April 30.
The judge also allowed a second set of closing arguments by both sides after deliberations had already started limited to the issue of the city’s business necessity defense, according to Doumanian’s court papers.
In California, the business necessity defense is a defense used in employment discrimination cases to justify a neutral policy that disproportionately harms a protected group.
In their previous court papers, attorneys for the city denied the plaintiffs’ claims.
“The LAFD is deeply troubled by the allegations brought by the plaintiffs and the tension among members in the arson section,” the city’s lawyers stated in their pleadings, adding that the division recruits, hires and promotes firefighters based on talent and work ethic.
“Despite being a very small section, it is committed to diversity and that commitment is reflected in its membership,” the city lawyers’ pleadings further state.
But according to the lawsuit, while the LAFD is very good at putting out fires and rescue services, what is sorely lacking in the department is respect and fairness in dealings with minority employees, especially Blacks.
The LAFD “has a very hostile attitude toward and disdain of its Black workforce and regularly engages in adverse employment actions against them, including sham investigations, false allegations of workplace misconduct and failure to promote and investigate complaints of workplace mistreatment and discrimination and to consistently apply workplace policies and rules,” according to the suit, which further alleges the department is governed by a “good old white boys club” where Black employees are “abused, denigrated, ignored and disrespected.”
The LAFD’s decision-makers tend to be white men who “hold very racist and bigoted attitudes and do not believe in diversity, equity or inclusion in the workplace,” the suit alleges. “Those minorities who don’t play their game are abused and mistreated in the workplace and their work lives are made miserable.”
The suit further alleges the LAFD “has a checkered history of racial harassment, intimidation and retaliation and has been the subject of many court actions that have exposed such bad behavior. Nevertheless, the culture of hatred and racism continues unabated and there have been no sincere reforms implemented to bring about an end to such racist hostility and racial abuse.”
Wilkerson has been exposed to a “repeated pattern and practice of racism and bigotry that permeates this agency through the highest levels in the supervisory hierarchy … from day one on the job,” the suit states. Management has wrongfully accused him many times of not doing his job and every aspect of his work is questioned or criticized, making it hard for him to move through the ranks, the suit states.
“At every turn, he feels he is being denied training and promotional opportunities,” the suit states.
Plaintiff Smith alleges he and other Black LAFD men and women are given written criticisms for trivial, minor or falsified accusations that their white counterparts do not receive.
“His job performance is always questioned, he is held to different standards, he is criticized in his decisions, and he is falsely accused of misconduct or other violations of unspecified workplace policies,” the suit alleges.
Plaintiff Newte never was the subject of criticism while assigned to a federal task force, but he faced a different environment within the LAFD, the suit states.
“The criticisms and attacks on his credibility, his integrity, his job performance and his entire being in this career have been by those Caucasian supervisors and managers at the city of Los Angeles and its fire department who are racist and intolerant bigots,” the suit states.
Morris applied for a senior arson investigator position in October 2020, but three white candidates were given preferential treatment by the command staff for the job and the selection process was postponed until those persons became eligible, according to the suit.