U.S. Is Fined for Conduct in Bias Lawsuit

Accusing the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of “unreasonable and just plain mean-spirited” conduct, a judge has ordered the agency to pay $386,000 to a law firm that it sued unsuccessfully for sexual harassment and discrimination.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian issued the order earlier this month after dismissing the EEOC’s class-action suit against Robert L. Reeves & Associates, an immigration law firm in Pasadena with about 40 employees. In awarding attorney fees and court costs to the firm--the largest ever assessed against the EEOC--Tevrizian invoked a rarely used sanction in civil rights law that allows judges to compensate defendants who are targeted by lawsuits that are “frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation.”

Anna Y. Park, EEOC regional attorney in Los Angeles, disputed Tevrizian’s characterization of the case, saying the allegations against Reeves were corroborated by numerous witnesses. She said an appeal is being considered.

The EEOC is charged with enforcing federal law prohibiting employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

The agency, which files 300 to 400 workplace discrimination suits a year, has been assessed attorney fees and court costs only four times since 1999, according to the agency’s public affairs office in Washington.

This case involved allegations that 12 female employees, including attorneys and secretaries, were sexually harassed by Reeves or were fired because they were pregnant. Several women complained that they were subjected to inappropriate touching, leering and sexual remarks. Reeves denied the allegations.

Tevrizian wrote in his May 6 order that the EEOC could have pursued three of those claims as potentially valid. Instead, he said, the agency brought a class action on behalf of a dozen women, “four of whose claims it knew had absolutely no foundation, and five others which it knew or should have known were groundless.”

Ultimately, he dismissed all of the claims, saying they did not rise to the level of misconduct under the law. In sexual harassment suits, a plaintiff must show that the wrongdoing was so severe or pervasive that it gave rise to a hostile work environment.

While dismissing the case on legal grounds, Tevrizian wrote that he wanted it understood that he did not condone any of the acts of sexual harassment alleged in the lawsuit.

Tevrizian also criticized the agency for its tactics in the case, which he described as “heavy-handed and out of bounds.”

By law, the commission is required to make a good-faith effort to resolve cases through conciliation. But Tevrizian said the EEOC laid down conditions that doomed the conciliation process from the start.

The commission, he said, demanded $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages to settle the case, but at the same time it refused to disclose the names of the alleged victims or details of their complaints.

When the law firm balked, the judge said, the EEOC pronounced the conciliation a failure and took the case to court.

Tevrizian found that the agency continued to withhold information about its case even after being ordered to disclose by a federal magistrate. Tevrizian also accused the EEOC of filing a claim on behalf of a law firm employee who had never complained of being mistreated.

In an interview, Park maintained that the allegations against Reeves were thoroughly investigated. She said Tevrizian failed to look at the case in its entirety.

“In sexual harassment cases, you have to look at the totality of the circumstances,” she said. “Instead, the judge piecemealed them out. That goes against U.S. Supreme Court precedent.”

The EEOC attorney said Tevrizian also failed to take into account that all of the complaints were directed against Reeves, the owner and most powerful person in the law firm.

“That was the theory of our case, and it was completely disregarded by the court,” Park said.

The EEOC began an investigation in 1997 after receiving a complaint from a former receptionist who said she was fired because she became pregnant. Reeves’ firm said she was terminated because of poor performance.

The case remained dormant until 1999, when two other female employees filed harassment complaints. Both were close friends of two lawyers who had left the firm in a bitter dispute with Reeves.

In court papers, Reeves accused his former associates, Daniel P. Hanlon and Colin T. Greene, of getting the women to make the sexual harassment claims in an effort to ruin his reputation.

Hanlon, who was interviewed by the EEOC, called Reeves’ charge ludicrous. Tevrizian gave credence to Reeves’ account, however.

“See, I look at this case as one where the EEOC was used by departing partners of the law firm,” the judge said, according to a court transcript.

“Duped? that’s absurd,” Park said. She said the EEOC received complaints about Reeves’ conduct from women who had nothing to do with his former partners.