Shawn Shelton v. City of Manhattan Beach, et al.
Published: Nov. 25, 2003 | Result Date: Aug. 11, 2003 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: BC280079 Bench Decision – $0
Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Central
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Craig A. Horowitz
(Horowitz & Clayton)
Facts
The plaintiff, Shawn Shelton, is a former Sergeant of the City of Manhattan Beach Police Department. In August 2002, he filed a suit while still an active employee but on medical leave in which he alleged sexual orientation discrimination, sexual orientation harassment, retaliation and a failure to investigate. During the course of the plaintiff's deposition, the city learned that Shelton, a former Sergeant in charge of Internal Affairs investigations had taken from the city over 300 pages of confidential IA documents. He was compelled to return the documents, but the court denied the defendants' request for a terminating, evidentiary or issue sanction. The case proceeded and the plaintiff took approximately 15 depositions of different officers of the Police Department. The city and the individual defendants moved for summary judgment on the grounds that the plaintiff had not even established a prima facie case of discrimination based on sexual orientation, much less pretext; that the plaintiff had failed to establish, as a matter of law, that he was the victim of hostile work environment sexual harassment; that the city and its individual Police Chief were not liable for retaliation because the plaintiff, as a matter of law, failed to establish that he had been the victim of any material, qualifying adverse action and that failure to investigate the cause of action was meritless because the plaintiff could not prove underlying harassment or discrimination, much less than the Internal Affairs investigation was legally inadequate. In opposing the summary judgment motion, the plaintiff presented a 72 paragraph declaration, as well as the declaration of a former officer, and deposition excerpts which referred to a number of rumors and hearsay with respect to comments allegedly made about the plaintiff's sexual orientation. In its reply papers, the defendants filed extensive objections. In a four-page Tentative Ruling, which the court adopted as its final ruling, the court sustained 81 separate objections made by the defendants on the grounds that the evidence presented was hearsay, conclusory, lacked foundation or was irrelevant. The court then proceeded to analyze the admissible evidence, and concluded that the plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of material fact as to any of his causes of action for sexual orientation discrimination, sexual orientation harassment, retaliation and failure to prevent harassment. As to the first course of action for sexual discrimination, the court found that the undisputed facts demonstrated that the plaintiff could not establish such cause of action because the plaintiff did not suffer any sort of adverse employment action. As to the second cause of action for hostile work environment sexual orientation harassment, the court found that the admissible evidence did not show severe and pervasive harassment, nor did the plaintiff subjectively perceive the environment to be abusive. Indeed, the court relied on the plaintiff's deposition admission that he "had no problems with the anti-gay slurs and jokes. I understand it's a cop thing," as well as the plaintiff's admission in deposition that he was not "intimidated" by the defendants' conduct. Although the plaintiff tried to backtrack from those admissions in his declaration, the court ruled that the plaintiff could not evade summary judgment by submitting a declaration contradicting his own prior deposition testimony. As to the third cause of action for retaliation, the court found that there had been no adverse employment action, inasmuch as he was never terminated, demoted, suspended or disciplined. In addition, the court did not find any substantial adverse change in the terms and the conditions of the plaintiff's employment. The court noted that a change that is merely contrary to the employee's interest or not to the employee's liking is insufficient as a matter of law. * * *
Settlement Discussions
The plaintiff at all times demanded $700,000 as a minimum. The City refused to offer any money to settle the case.
Other Information
* * * Finally, in view of the above rulings, the court found that the plaintiff could not sustain an independent cause of action for failure to prevent discrimination and harassment. Prior to the litigation, the plaintiff went to the media to attempt to extract a settlement from the city. The city refused to consider the plaintiff's settlement overtures. The case went to a court ordered mediation.
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