State Is Sued by Family on Killings in Job Office

The family of Fidel Gonzalez Jr., who shot his boss to death at the state unemployment office in Garden Grove last March and then killed himself, filed a $7-million wrongful death suit Wednesday against the state, charging that government officials could have prevented Gonzalez’s death.

The suit, filed by Paulita R. Gonzalez, the dead man’s widow, and Fidel Gonzalez III, his son, said the nine defendants named “could have prevented this confrontation, but their acts and failures to act, in fact, encouraged the confrontation to occur.”

On the morning of March 31, 1986, Gonzalez drove to work early, walked into the office of Louis Zuniga Jr. and shot the 50-year-old man three times. Then he held the gun to his own temple and fired once. Both men died instantly.

The suit alleges that intolerable working conditions created by the state Employment Development Department caused Zuniga to use “oppressive management tactics,” which drove Gonzalez, who was 53 and lived in Westminster, to kill his boss and himself.

Attempts on Life

In addition, the suit claims that state officials named in the suit, including EDD Director Kay Kiddoo, had prior knowledge of numerous threats and attempts on Zuniga’s life by employees. It also says state officials knew of attacks on EDD employees in other offices by people applying for benefits. The lawsuit charges that the defendants failed to institute tighter security measures to protect office employees.

Security was so lax at the Garden Grove Boulevard office that a gun could be brought in easily, added Maurice Mandel II, the Gonzalez family’s attorney.

“We feel that if the slightest impediment had been placed in the way of Fidel Gonzalez that the tragedy could have been prevented,” Mandel said.

Zuniga’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit Jan. 14, naming as defendants the State of California, the City of Garden Grove, Kiddoo, Gonzalez’s immediate supervisor and others.

Zuniga’s widow, however, is not suing the survivors of the man who killed her husband. Nor is Gonzalez’s family suing the Zuniga family.

Mandel said Paulita Gonzalez has absolutely no interest in suing the Zunigas and added that Mrs. Zuniga is unemployed and has no money to pay damages anyway.

Asked whether there had been any agreement between the survivors of Zuniga and Gonzalez to refrain from suing each other, Mandel said: “We have an understanding in that regard, that the basis of our motivation is not to go after each other but to focus on the state.”

The foundation and arguments in support of both of the families’ lawsuits are “nearly identical, up to the morning of the shooting,” Mandel said. “Zuniga was victimized by Gonzalez; Fidel Gonzalez was victimized by himself. But before the shooting, they were both victimized by the state. They were actually placed in that situation that morning because of the acts of the state officials (ranking) above Lou Zuniga.”

Declined Comment

EDD spokeswoman Valeria Reynoso declined comment on the lawsuits because her agency has not received a copy of either of them.

“At this time we have not received any lawsuits, nothing, so we can’t comment if we don’t have anything to review,” Reynoso said in a telephone interview. “We cannot comment on a lawsuit that we have not seen.”

In interviews last summer, workers at the Garden Grove EDD office claimed that Zuniga told them shortly after arriving there that he was known within the department as “the Assassin.” They also said he demanded that caseload quotas be raised to unrealistic levels and canceled Christmas vacations in an effort to erase backlogs.

Employees complained of inhumane treatment. Grievances were filed. Paramedics were even called to treat workers who had collapsed on the job--one week they were called three times. Many of them had no identifiable health problems and claimed that they had buckled under stress.

Official Position

The EDD position, spokeswoman Reynoso said last year, was that the Garden Grove killings represent an isolated incident and were unrelated to management practices.

Paulita Gonzalez, 53, feels differently.

“Every day is very unbearable for me,” she said in an interview this week. “When you’re married to a man for 30 years and you knew that your husband is a kind, loving man, you can’t understand why it’s happened.”

What torments Paulita Gonzalez the most, she said, are the loneliness and the mystery surrounding her husband’s death. Fidel was calm, kind and nonviolent, she said, and the family never kept a gun in the house. She described him as a man who kept his problems to himself and never shared strife with his family.

“He didn’t tell me too much,” she said. “I’m a diabetic, and I think that he preferred not to say anything to me so I wouldn’t get sicker.”

Fidel Gonzalez’s behavior did not change dramatically in the months before he exploded in front of a handful of his colleagues in the Garden Grove Boulevard office. He mentioned no problems at work or with Zuniga and showed no signs of stress or concern, Paulita Gonzalez said.

But sometime in January, 1986, Gonzalez purchased a gun. He had been working through unofficial channels to try to get transferred to the Anaheim EDD office, but the transfer, which apparently was being arranged, came a few days too late.

Paulita Gonzalez said her husband had mentioned that he wanted to be transferred to a new EDD office but never said why.

The Gonzalez lawsuit names as defendants the state, the California State Employees Assn. and seven EDD administrators: Kiddoo, John Calderas, Al Dave, Patricia Thornton, Mark Sanders, Stewart Learner and James Wheatley.

Said Paulita Gonzalez: “I don’t have a husband, and my son doesn’t have a father. Mrs. Zuniga doesn’t have a husband and a father for her children. . . . (We are) innocent victims of a tragedy that should have been prevented.”