Lawsuit Cites Harassment Over Firefighter Hiring ‘Quotas’

In a lawsuit against the Anaheim Fire Department, two former and one current firefighter allege that they were forced to resign or were otherwise harassed for speaking out against the department’s minority hiring policies.

“These guys stood up for the standards and basically got put down very hard,” said James G. Harker, a Santa Ana attorney representing Jimmie Lee Cox and John Lynn Cox, both 50; and Gregory J. Mowad, 33.

Carol Flynn, a deputy city attorney for the city of Anaheim, would not comment on the lawsuit Thursday except to say that the city “will certainly look into it and vigorously defend it.”

According the lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, the three men were Anaheim firefighters in 1992 when the department implemented what the lawsuit describes as a “quota system” under which unqualified minorities and women were hired to increase diversity.

“Basically there has been an effort to create diversity for its own sake,” Harker said. “There have been a number of people that the city has hired for which it bent the standards.”

When the three men openly criticized what they saw as “reverse discrimination,” the lawsuit contends, they were subjected to a barrage of retaliation that included “unjustified disciplinary actions, petty reprisals, denial of promotion or advancement, negative performance evaluations, unjustified ‘investigations’ ” and being branded racists and bigots.

As a result, according to the lawsuit, Jimmie Lee Cox--a battalion chief who had been with the department for 24 years--was forced to resign. John Lynn Cox, a captain and Jimmie’s twin brother, was forced to go on disability with a heart condition, according to the suit. And Mowad, though still working as a fire engineer, has suffered “shock, worry, anxiety, embarrassment, humiliation, fear, loss of sleep, depression, mental anguish, angst, uncertainty” and other ailments.

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount in damages.