Facts

Plaintiff Lemor Wasserstrom, a supervising children's social worker with the County of Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services, filed suit against her employer claiming she was discriminated against.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiff contended that her employer failed to promote her to Children's Services Administrator I. She alleged she suffered discrimination and harassment because of her race and religion. Plaintiff claimed violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, whistleblower retaliation in violation of FEHA and Labor Code section 1102.5, and sought damages for negligence and defamation.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Defendants contended that plaintiff's failure to promote was not due to race or religion. Defendants argued that plaintiff was not the most qualified candidate. Defendants also argued that the alleged harassment was not severe or pervasive and that plaintiff could not establish whistleblower retaliation because she complained after she failed to promote.

Defendants contended that plaintiff's negligence and defamation claims lacked merit and were barred by plaintiff's failure to comply with the claim presentation requirements of the Government Claims Act, and that plaintiff lacked evidence to support punitive damages against the individual defendants.

Result

Summary judgment in favor of the defense.

Other Information

Plaintiff is filling an appeal of the court's ruling granting defendants' motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff contended that just before the hearing, the court issued a five page tentative ruling, which plaintiff's counsel claimed she was only given minutes to review and was told not to remove the documents from the courtroom. However, because the court also hears family law cases, they had all counsels leave the room several times, according to plaintiff. Plaintiff asserted that the court stated on the record that it had not read all the documents, evidence, objections to evidence, or ruled on the admissibly of the evidence. Therefore, at the time of argument which plaintiff claimed only lasted six minutes, and receipt of the court's tentative ruling to grant defendants' motion, plaintiff contended the court did not have full consideration of the evidence, objections to the evidence, the separate statements of each party, and the points and authorities submitted by both parties at this hearing. Therefore there were no oral arguments of the merits. Plaintiff's request to continue the oral argument until the court had time to review all documents, evidence and objections, was denied. FILING DATE: June 28, 2012.