Los Angeles County CA May 5 2013 The former chief safety officer of Lawndale High School is suing the Centinela Valley Union High School District for age discrimination, saying he was twice demoted after he turned 60 and was harassed by an immediate supervisor about half his age.
In a complaint filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court, Roberleigh Richester also says the district was dismissive of his physical disabilities -- mostly back and foot issues -- which he says are the result of being hit by a car while he was directing traffic during school events on two separate occasions several years ago.
Richester started working for the district in 1999 and was given a faculty award at Lawndale High titled "Security of the Year" in 2008. But he alleges the district's treatment of him went south when he turned 60. Richester retired in last August at age 63 - four years before he intended - because the working conditions there left him with little choice, said his attorney, Gayle Eskridge.
"He had worked there a long time successfully," she said. "Once he got older and was injured, he started having problems with harassment and getting undesirable assignments. "
The civil case portrays a workplace environment that was generally hostile. It asserts that Richester's higher-ups - including Dwayne Eatmon, his immediate supervisor, who is named in the suit as a co-defendant with the district - routinely pressured him to retire, singled him out for mistreatment and humiliated him in front of other staff members and students. For example, the complaint says an assistant principal at the school once responded to his reporting of an alleged sexual assault by accusing him of racial profiling in front of students.
On another occasion, the complaint says, Richester's superiors unfairly punished him for his response to a false rumor about the death of a student.
Attorneys representing the Centinela Valley school district say his claims lack merit.
"Very simply put, the district denies discrimination against Mr. Richester on the basis of either his age or his alleged disability," said Gary Gibeaut of the law firm Gibeaut, Mahan and Briscoe. "The district also denies retaliating against him. The district is taking the position that Mr. Richester voluntarily resigned from his employment with the district. "
Gibeaut also questioned Richester's claim of being disabled.
"I'm not sure the opinion of the district is the same on the nature and extent of the disability," he said.
Richester is seeking monetary damages to not only cover the four years of work he missed, but also compensate for emotional distress he says he suffered as a result of the dispute.
The case is set to go to trial on Oct. 22 at the Torrance courthouse, but Gibeaut says the two sides could meet for mediation in as soon as a month.
"We are hoping things can be worked out amicably," he said.
The school district asserts that Richester was never demoted, but instead was transferred in July 2011 to another school - Leuzinger High, also in Lawndale - as part of a wider reorganization.
"In his position he does not have a vested right to a position at any particular school within the district," Gibeaut said. "If the need arises and a vacancy needs to be filled, the district has the right to transfer him from one school to another. "
Indeed, nobody disputes that Richester was transferred from Lawndale High - where he served in a supervisory capacity - to Leuzinger High School. There, he was assigned to a stuffy parking-lot guard shack with no heating or air conditioning.
Richester filed a complaint about the excessive heat in the guard shack with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
"He bought shades for the guard shack himself," Eskridge said.
OSHA fined the district $560 for the guard shack conditions and ordered the district to provide supervisors with heat-illness training. The district made the necessary "corrections," Gibeaut said.
Richester also claims his bosses often treated him differently than his younger colleagues. (Gibeaut declined to comment on these specifics, citing personnel confidentiality laws.)
In February 2011, for example, Richester says he spotted a male adult on campus with his hand up the skirt of a 16-year-old girl. According to his complaint, he and another officer - Shirley Thorne, who was 41 - questioned the man, and, after determining he was lying, cuffed and detained him. They reported the incident to Associate Principal Dawn Nelson, who said the man was a "nice kid" and ordered that he be let go.
The next day, the complaint says, Nelson scolded Richester in front of a group of students about racial profiling, as the man who'd been cuffed was Vietnamese. During a subsequent mediation meeting with Principal Joseph Guidetti, Nelson characterized the incident as "blatant racism" by Richester.
"Interestingly, Dawn Nelson did not find any fault with 41-year-old Safety Officer Shirley Thorne, who had also been involved in this incident," the complaint says.
The next month, Eatmon - Richester's boss - reported a student's death to Richester and Thorne, according to the complaint. Thorne, who knew the student's girlfriend, pulled her out of class and took her to the nurse's office. Richester was there, too. By then, he claims, he'd received confirmation of the death by not only security staff at the school, but also the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Richester "gently broke the bad news to the girlfriend," the complaint says.
"Shortly thereafter, everyone at the school learned the story was false, and that the student had not died," the complaint says.
The next day, Richester was placed on administrative leave; no specific explanation was given other than "allegations of possible workplace violations have been made against you. "
"On the other hand, Officer Shirley Thorne ... who had no authority to pull the student out of class, did not receive any type of discipline for her actions," the complaint says.
In May 2011, Eatmon allegedly began encouraging Richester to retire. When he refused, the complaint says, Eatmon "stormed into (Richester's) office and, raising his voice in a threatening manner, told (Richester) he was going to be demoted and transferred to Leuzinger High."
Two months later, Richester was transferred to Leuzinger.
Source- dailybreeze.com
In a complaint filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court, Roberleigh Richester also says the district was dismissive of his physical disabilities -- mostly back and foot issues -- which he says are the result of being hit by a car while he was directing traffic during school events on two separate occasions several years ago.
Richester started working for the district in 1999 and was given a faculty award at Lawndale High titled "Security of the Year" in 2008. But he alleges the district's treatment of him went south when he turned 60. Richester retired in last August at age 63 - four years before he intended - because the working conditions there left him with little choice, said his attorney, Gayle Eskridge.
"He had worked there a long time successfully," she said. "Once he got older and was injured, he started having problems with harassment and getting undesirable assignments. "
The civil case portrays a workplace environment that was generally hostile. It asserts that Richester's higher-ups - including Dwayne Eatmon, his immediate supervisor, who is named in the suit as a co-defendant with the district - routinely pressured him to retire, singled him out for mistreatment and humiliated him in front of other staff members and students. For example, the complaint says an assistant principal at the school once responded to his reporting of an alleged sexual assault by accusing him of racial profiling in front of students.
On another occasion, the complaint says, Richester's superiors unfairly punished him for his response to a false rumor about the death of a student.
Attorneys representing the Centinela Valley school district say his claims lack merit.
"Very simply put, the district denies discrimination against Mr. Richester on the basis of either his age or his alleged disability," said Gary Gibeaut of the law firm Gibeaut, Mahan and Briscoe. "The district also denies retaliating against him. The district is taking the position that Mr. Richester voluntarily resigned from his employment with the district. "
Gibeaut also questioned Richester's claim of being disabled.
"I'm not sure the opinion of the district is the same on the nature and extent of the disability," he said.
Richester is seeking monetary damages to not only cover the four years of work he missed, but also compensate for emotional distress he says he suffered as a result of the dispute.
The case is set to go to trial on Oct. 22 at the Torrance courthouse, but Gibeaut says the two sides could meet for mediation in as soon as a month.
"We are hoping things can be worked out amicably," he said.
The school district asserts that Richester was never demoted, but instead was transferred in July 2011 to another school - Leuzinger High, also in Lawndale - as part of a wider reorganization.
"In his position he does not have a vested right to a position at any particular school within the district," Gibeaut said. "If the need arises and a vacancy needs to be filled, the district has the right to transfer him from one school to another. "
Indeed, nobody disputes that Richester was transferred from Lawndale High - where he served in a supervisory capacity - to Leuzinger High School. There, he was assigned to a stuffy parking-lot guard shack with no heating or air conditioning.
Richester filed a complaint about the excessive heat in the guard shack with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
"He bought shades for the guard shack himself," Eskridge said.
OSHA fined the district $560 for the guard shack conditions and ordered the district to provide supervisors with heat-illness training. The district made the necessary "corrections," Gibeaut said.
Richester also claims his bosses often treated him differently than his younger colleagues. (Gibeaut declined to comment on these specifics, citing personnel confidentiality laws.)
In February 2011, for example, Richester says he spotted a male adult on campus with his hand up the skirt of a 16-year-old girl. According to his complaint, he and another officer - Shirley Thorne, who was 41 - questioned the man, and, after determining he was lying, cuffed and detained him. They reported the incident to Associate Principal Dawn Nelson, who said the man was a "nice kid" and ordered that he be let go.
The next day, the complaint says, Nelson scolded Richester in front of a group of students about racial profiling, as the man who'd been cuffed was Vietnamese. During a subsequent mediation meeting with Principal Joseph Guidetti, Nelson characterized the incident as "blatant racism" by Richester.
"Interestingly, Dawn Nelson did not find any fault with 41-year-old Safety Officer Shirley Thorne, who had also been involved in this incident," the complaint says.
The next month, Eatmon - Richester's boss - reported a student's death to Richester and Thorne, according to the complaint. Thorne, who knew the student's girlfriend, pulled her out of class and took her to the nurse's office. Richester was there, too. By then, he claims, he'd received confirmation of the death by not only security staff at the school, but also the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Richester "gently broke the bad news to the girlfriend," the complaint says.
"Shortly thereafter, everyone at the school learned the story was false, and that the student had not died," the complaint says.
The next day, Richester was placed on administrative leave; no specific explanation was given other than "allegations of possible workplace violations have been made against you. "
"On the other hand, Officer Shirley Thorne ... who had no authority to pull the student out of class, did not receive any type of discipline for her actions," the complaint says.
In May 2011, Eatmon allegedly began encouraging Richester to retire. When he refused, the complaint says, Eatmon "stormed into (Richester's) office and, raising his voice in a threatening manner, told (Richester) he was going to be demoted and transferred to Leuzinger High."
Two months later, Richester was transferred to Leuzinger.
Source- dailybreeze.com