$2.2 Million Awarded Over Racial Slurs

VAN NUYS —  A former employee of Woodland Hills-based Litton Guidance and Control Systems who said he was harassed for years by supervisors who made anti-Semitic slurs has been awarded $2.2 million by a Van Nuys jury.

Jeffrey Graber, 41, said he was so tormented he developed digestive problems, went to the hospital thinking he had suffered a heart attack and was eventually put on permanent disability because of severe depression. His attorney said Graber is still suffering with self-esteem problems and depression so severe he will have to take Prozac for life.

The verdicts were confirmed by a court clerk. Brandon Belote, a Litton spokesman, would not discuss the verdicts.

“There are several legal issues that have not been resolved. The judge has not ordered the judgment,” Belote said. “Our policy is that we don’t comment on pending cases.”

Graber began working at the defense contractor’s Canoga Park photocopying and binding center in 1985. In an incident Graber termed typical of a pattern of conduct, he said a female supervisor had called him a “cheap Jew” for not contributing to a Christmas gift. And when he told co-workers about a good deal he had gotten on a watch, Graber said she had told him he “must have Jewed him down on the price.”

Graber said other employees testified during the trial, backing his claim that supervisors made insulting comments against him and other minorities.

“These people were all racist,” Graber said in an interview from Michigan. “They’d constantly make Polish jokes. There were a few Mexican people who worked there and they called them all ‘wetbacks’ and ‘lazy,’ and when they would refer to black people they’d use the N word.”

Graber said he stuck it out because he didn’t want to lose a stable job with good benefits.

He left the company in October 1994 on full disability because of psychological problems caused by his supervisors’ abuse, according to his lawyer, James Leonard Brown.

The jury decided each of the three supervisors named in the lawsuit were personally guilty of harassment and were each liable for $10,000 in damages. It determined Litton was also guilty and liable for $555,092 for loss of wages and emotional distress and more than $1.6 million in punitive damages in verdicts delivered Wednesday and last week.

Brown said the three named supervisors--Richard Sweet, Joan Wood and Richard Miller--are still employed by Litton. The Litton spokesman said he did not know whether they are still employed.

Brown said Litton claimed in court that his client made up the racist allegations because “He had decided he wanted to leave the company and he wanted to exit with a claim.” The two male supervisors denied making any racist comments and Wood, while admitting the comment about his haggling over a watch, claimed it was an isolated incident, according to Brown. They said they did not know he was Jewish.

Graber, who moved to his home state of Michigan shortly after leaving Litton, said he has spent about $30,000 in legal and medical bills. He said he has not decided what he will do with the money he was awarded.

“The reason I did this is because I wanted to stop this from happening in the workplace. I didn’t do it for the money,” Graber said. “I didn’t think those things happen at a big company like that.”