Los Angeles Jury Awards $1.7M To Punish Homophobia

365gay.com and Joe.My.God have picked up the story of heterosexual, Jehovah's Witness, white male senior citizen Lewis "Steve" Bressler being awarded $1.7 million dollars by a Los Angeles jury last Friday in the context of a race, sex and sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit filed by African American lesbian Brenda Lee against the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Three firefighters (including Lee and Bressler) who worked together at Station 96 (in Chatsworth) in 2001 sued the city in 2005. The three alleged that after two of them came to the defense of their black lesbian colleague after she complained of mistreatment that all three were retaliated against by other members of the department.

The discriminatory nature of the Fire Department has been in the news for the last six months thanks to the drama surrounding the Tennie Pierce case. Pierce, an African American male firefighter sued the city for racial discrimination after he was fed (and unwittingly ate) dog food. That lawsuit was settled for $2.7 million which the Los Angeles City Council initially agreed to pay in November 2006, but was vetoed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after conservative radio hosts John and Ken became involved and unearthed incriminating photos of Pierce participating in other racially tinged hazing incidents. The City Council failed to override that veto last month.

The Los Angeles Times article by reporter Steve Hymon has further details on the Bressler case and pending cases surrounding Lewis' allegations:

[...]

Another plaintiff in the case, Gary Mellinger, settled his part of the case with the city for $350,000 in November after a jury found in his favor. He, too, had alleged retaliation for helping Lee.

A trial date for Lee's suit has not been set. Among her allegations are that she was retaliated against for complaining about discrimination and was later declared unfit for duty by the department.

"Two juries have heard two cases arising from the same evidence, and both times they have found for the plaintiff," said Genie Harrison, an attorney for Bressler.

[...]

Harrison is also the attorney for Tennie Pierce, whose case is now scheduled for trial in September 2007. Harrison wrote an op-ed in December attempting to explain that the multi-million dollar verdict in the "dog food" case was not just about race.

The $2.7-million settlement approved by the Los Angeles City Council, then vetoed by the mayor, was not simply about dog food. It was compensation for the Fire Department's failure to stop the retaliation against Pierce, who broke the code of silence by reporting the incident. One thing everyone — the city controller, the head of the city personnel department and even firefighters — agrees on is that retaliation is a serious problem within the department. It certainly was for Pierce.

Seems to me that City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo might want to resume settlement talks and $2.7 million might be cheap at this point if Los Angeles juries are awarding million-plus verdicts to straight white guys being retaliated against for protesting employment retaliation against black lesbians.