2 File Suit Claiming Gulf War Protests Led to Loss of Jobs : Courts: The Spanish Trails Girl Scout Council and a Los Angeles law firm are targeted in separate complaints.

The Girl Scout organization in Pomona and a Los Angeles law firm have been sued in unrelated cases by individuals who claim they lost jobs because of alleged involvement with protests over the Persian Gulf War.

Rosaedith Villasenor, 35, of San Bernardino, said she was fired as a field executive with the Spanish Trails Girl Scout Council because she went to a Claremont park while a war protest rally was under way last February.

Thomas Campagna, 36, of Glendale, said the firm of Cotkin, Collins and Franscell agreed to hire him upon his graduation from law school this year, but withdrew its offer after he became an outspoken critic of U.S. policy during the conflict to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Jovanna Wooden, executive director of the Spanish Trails Girl Scout Council, said she would not, as a matter of policy, discuss Villasenor’s employment record, or whether she had been fired. Officials at Cotkin, Collins and Franscell declined comment.

In her suit, Villasenor said she stopped on her lunch hour to visit a friend and to use the park restroom, not to participate in the rally. She was accompanied by a 14-year-old girl whose mother is a Girl Scout volunteer.

The plaintiff said she was threatened with dismissal and suspended for 10 days after the mother complained that her daughter had been taken to an anti-war rally.

Then, Villasenor said, she was fired July 25 on “the pretext” that she had registered her son in a school near her work by using the home address of a Girl Scout volunteer.

Villasenor said she had the volunteer’s permission to use the address, her son is now attending the school on an interdistrict transfer and, in any event, her son’s school attendance is a private matter, unrelated to her job.

The plaintiff said she believes she was fired because of her presence at the rally.

Wooden said her organization would never fire anyone for exercising free speech. But, she added, it would be wrong for a Girl Scout employee to take a scout to a political rally without the parent’s permission and to ask a volunteer to give false information to school officials.

“I’m simply saying we have standards when you’re working for us,” Wooden declared.

Attorney Daniel Fox, who represents Villasenor, said the wrongful termination suit filed Wednesday in Pomona Superior Court seeks damages, but does not ask for re-employment. The lawyer said Villasenor has found a job with another Girl Scout council.

In addition to the scouts, the suit names Wooden and Carol Altvater of Upland, the volunteer who allegedly complained about her daughter being taken to the anti-war rally. Altvater declined to comment.

The suit filed against Cotkin, Collins and Franscell in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday claims that Campagna, a magna cum laude graduate this year of Whittier College School of Law, accepted an offer to join the Los Angeles firm, and received a $4,000 stipend while taking the bar examination.

But in August, 12 days before Campagna was to report to work, the suit claims, the firm withdrew the offer in a letter that cited “overstaffing and the recessionary climate.”

Attorney Dale L. Gronemeier, who represents Campagna, said Cotkin, Collins and Franscell should be thriving, because one of the firm’s specialties is defending police against brutality complaints. In a press release, Gronemeier cites an increase in police brutality cases after the beating of Altadena motorist Rodney G. King by Los Angeles police earlier this year.

Campagna said he is only speculating when he suggests that the job offer was withdrawn because of articles he wrote as editor of the Whittier Law Review criticizing U.S. policy during the Gulf War.

He said the articles were seen by associates at the firm, but he does not know if partners in the firm saw them.

Gronemeier said that, regardless of the reasons, the law firm cannot unilaterally rescind the employment agreement, which would have paid Campagna at least $60,000 a year.