Petaluma settles firefighter sexual harassment case
After more than two years of litigation, the city of Petaluma has reached a $1.25 million settlement in a lawsuit brought forth by the city’s second-ever female firefighter, who allegedly experienced a pervasive pattern of sexual harassment and discrimination during the six years she worked at the Petaluma Fire Department.
The cost of the settlement, reached Dec. 6, is approximately equal to the combined total of legal fees the city and the former firefighter Andrea Waters would have accrued if the case went to trial, according to City Attorney Eric Danly. The figure marks the largest settlement the city has reached in an employee-related case since at least 2005, Danly said.
The city is settling the case with financial support from its risk pool, the California Joint Powers Risk Management Authority, a statewide association for insurance based risk-sharing pools. Of the $1.75 million in overall legal fees and settlement costs incurred during litigation, the city will pay $500,000, while the remaining balance will be drawn from the risk pool, Danly said.
In the line of duty
Waters was hired by the city as a firefighter and paramedic on June 2, 2008, becoming the department’s only female firefighter, and the first woman to work in the city in that capacity in almost 40 years.
She came to the job with more than five years of experience working at Northwest Fire District in Tuscon, Az., and was chosen from a pool of 250 applicants.
In an interview Friday, Waters, now 37, said the alleged cycle of harassment and retaliation came as a “really slow progression,” during her time at the department. She noticed she was subjected to a higher level of scrutiny than her male counterparts, she said, and was denied opportunities for training or advancements in the department that she sought and felt she was qualified for.
She alleged that proper accommodations were not provided, with sleeping quarters that lacked privacy during overnight shifts. She said she was not provided with a separate shower facility, forcing her to wait to shower or change at times when her male counterparts were not using the facilities.
When she tried to address those and other issues with her superiors, she alleged that she experienced retaliation.
During an evaluation after she had brought up her concerns, she said a superior told her that he “didn’t trust me with the lives of his crew and with his own life,” a comment that left her shaken.
“I was of course frustrated and the worst part about it is stuff I still deal with - it’s the amount I started to question my own abilities that’s really the worst part, that self-doubt and also a lot of anger,” she said.
She said she spoke with superiors, a union representative and the city’s human resources department, though she alleged that she was never advised to lodge a formal complaint and did not do so.
She took a leave from the department in February 2014, and in May 2014 filed a charge alleging sexual harassment and retaliation with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. While still on leave, she resigned from her position three days after she filed the charge, Danly said in a press release. The EEOC complaint was the first indication the city received about the alleged harassment, Danly said.
“It was getting toward the end of my leave and I just knew that mentally - it wasn’t - I couldn’t go back. It was really clear to me the reason I was treated the way that I was,” she said.
The city in June 2014 retained an outside attorney, Amy Oppenheimer, to investigate the claim and to work with Danly to prepare a defense for an anticipated lawsuit, according to an appeal court ruling. The report concluded that Water’s claims were “without merit,” Danly wrote in a news release.
Danly declined to comment if any disciplinary measures had been taken against department employees at the time, citing employee confidentiality laws.
Waters and her legal team filed a suit seeking lost wages and financial damages in November 2014.
“I knew that if I just walked away and didn’t do anything that nothing was ever going to change,” she said. “I mean that’s really the reason, I didn’t want to walk away from it and have it be the same for the next woman.”
Legal battle
By mid-2016, the city was tangled in a contentious legal battle over the release of the report from the city’s investigation. A lower Sonoma County court had ruled in May 2015 that Waters’ legal team could have access to the report’s findings, which the city argued were exempt due in part to attorney-client privacy rules.
The California First District Court of Appeals then issued an opinion in June stopping Waters’ attorneys from reviewing the findings of the report, maintaining that it was privileged and not subject to disclosure.
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