Citing possible irregularities in court proceedings, an attorney is asking for a new trial for four of six Black Los Angeles Fire Department employees denied damages in a long-running 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 June 2021, alleging racial discrimination, hostile work environment and failure to prevent harassment, retaliation and discrimination.
The plaintiffs said 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 Doumanian said that based on a section of the state Code of Civil Procedure, the four plaintiffs denied damages are entitled to a new trial. A hearing is scheduled Sept. 24.
The CCP section exists “precisely because, after a verdict is returned, the trial judge may evaluate the entire record and determine whether the cumulative procedure materially affected a party’s right to a fair trial.”
During their deliberations, jurors exposed problems in the verdict forms, Doumanian further says. When the judge ordered an amended set of verdict forms, they should have been told to turn back in the previous forms, Doumanian says. The jurors were instead allowed to use the forms as they wanted except as the final verdict forms, according to Doumanian.
In their verdicts, jurors made the same disparate treatment findings for the four investigators who were denied damages as for the two who received awards while also finding that the city maintained an employment practice or selection policy that had a disproportionate adverse effect on Black arson Investigators, Doumanian further states in her court papers. However, the jury still only found for Morris and Newte, according to Doumanian’s court papers.
But in their court papers filed Thursday in opposition to a new trial for the four plaintiffs, attorneys for the city contend the ultimate special verdict forms the jury used correctly reflected the law.
“No evidence suggests that the verdict forms confused the jurors because when the jury had questions, the court answered with correct statements of law and allowed the parties to argue their respective positions to the jury,” the city’s lawyers write in their court papers.
The four plaintiffs were not prejudiced because it is “not more likely they would have achieved a different verdict,” the city’s attorneys further state in their court papers.
The suit alleged 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. 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 alleged 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.”