Whistle-Blower Who Lost Job Is Awarded $750,000

A Superior Court jury Thursday awarded $750,000 to a former Los Angeles County health department scientist who claimed that he was fired because he reported radiation safety hazards at Olive View Medical Center.

The jury award followed a two-week trial in which Reuven Zach, a medical radiation physicist at the county-run facility in Sylmar, claimed he was wrongfully fired for warning his superiors that women were being subjected to unnecessarily high levels of radiation during mammograms.

Laurence B. Labovitz, Zach’s attorney, said he believed that the jury’s decision represented “one of the largest awards in the county, and possibly the state, for whistle-blowing by a public employee.”

“This sends a message to the county bureaucrats who paraded before this jury . . . that if you retaliate against a public employee for reporting safety violations it is going to be a very costly proposition in the future,” he said.

The suit named the county Department of Health Services and its director, Robert Gates; Olive View; Dr. Issa Yaghami; Olive View Administrator Douglas Bagley, and Charles J. Canales, a county personnel director. The complaint also sought reinstatement for Zach.

The jury found that Zach had been wrongfully discharged, that he was intentionally fired for complaining about safety hazards at Olive View and other county clinics and that county officials had conspired to deny him employment.

Zach said he was pleased with the verdict, which he said was “my first taste of the American judicial system.” The physicist emigrated from Israel to the United States 10 years ago.

“I’m sure I will get a good night’s sleep tonight after many sleepless nights,” he said. “But I still have to overcome the shock.”

It was not immediately known if the county, represented by Deputy County Counsel Ed Joyce, planned to appeal.

During the trial, the county denied that Zach was singled out for retribution and said he was laid off because of budget cutbacks.

Irving Cohen, county Department of Health Services finance director, said Zach was one of 17 employees designated for release because of budget restraints.

Zach testified he had sent memos to his superiors warning that technicians at Olive View and its satellite clinics in the San Fernando Valley were failing to follow procedures in their use of X-ray equipment.

He said that in a 1988 memo sent to Yaghami, then chairman of the Olive View radiology department, he warned about the use of “outdated film” and the “unprofessional conduct and attitude” of some of the technicians at the satellite clinics.

On July 25, 1988, Zach said he received a notice that his job description was being updated. The following September, Zach said, Olive View Administrator Bagley sent him a letter informing him that he had been laid off because of budget cutbacks.

Superior Court Judge Aurelio Munoz set a March 8 hearing to determine if Zach should be rehired by the county.