Nurse Files Sex Bias Suit Against Hospital

A nurse has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against San Pedro Peninsula Hospital, charging that officials there failed to prevent a staff gynecologist from sexually harassing nurses.

The suit, filed Thursday in Long Beach Superior Court, charges that repeated harassment by gynecologist Barry H. Tischler of San Pedro created a “hostile working environment” for nurse Julie Fisher, 45, of Palos Verdes.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers may be sued under federal civil rights law for sexual harassment in the workplace, even when a victim has not suffered economic injury as a result. The justices said unwelcome sexual advances that create a hostile environment for employees are sufficient to sustain claims of illegal sex discrimination.

The Supreme Court ruling was issued in the case of Michelle Vinson, a former branch manager for the Meritor Savings Bank of Washington D.C., who charged that she had been the victim of numerous advances by a former supervisor.

Retaliation Claimed

The lawyer in the Vinson case was Patricia J. Barry of Grover City, Calif., who is handling the case filed by Fisher and her husband Cordell Fisher, a staff pediatric dentist at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital.

In the suit, Julie Fisher claims that hospital officials retaliated against her for complaining about alleged sexual advances from Tischler. According to the suit, Cordell Fisher also complained to hospital officials about sexual harassment of his wife and has suffered a loss of patient referrals.

The suit names as defendants Tischler, the hospital and 24 hospital officials, including former hospital president Leslie Smith, and members of the Board of Directors. Of the 25 officials, 23 are men.

Rod Aymond, president of the hospital, said the private, nonprofit hospital received an internal complaint from Fisher in 1986. “We fully investigated those allegations,” Aymond said. “Our investigation revealed her complaints as of then had no merit.” He declined further comment.

Tischler could not be reached for comment.

‘Sexual Insults’

According to the suit, in 1981 and 1982, Julie Fisher was subjected to “sexual insults as well as offensive touching, including on one occasion, separating the cartilage in her ribs because he (Tischler) had hugged her so tightly.”

The suit states that Fisher complained to her immediate supervisor and Smith about the alleged harassment, and was ostracized by co-workers in retaliation.

In 1982, after Fisher appeared before a hospital fact-finding committee, Tischler stopped harassing her and wrote her an apology, according to the suit. The Dec. 17, 1982, letter, included in the suit, said that Tischler offered his “profound apologies for the misunderstanding that I was involved in with you.”

“I can assure you that I did not intend any embarrassment or harassment of you in any way,” the letter said, adding, “The matter has been a most painful lesson for me.”

Other Acts Alleged

However, the suit claims that Tischler “continued to engage in acts of sexual harassment against other women employees” in Fisher’s presence. According to the suit, the harassment included: “sitting on the laps of women while wiggling, hugging and kissing them, making offensive statements of a sexual nature, moving his hands in the direction of a woman’s vaginal area, grabbing women from the back with his hands on their breasts . . . picking up women and swinging them around, throwing a woman (onto) a gurney . . . “

Barry said those incidents took place in the hospital’s operating room, hallways and lunch room.

According to the suit, Fisher complained to a hospital official who replied, “Well, you can’t legislate the way people think. You can’t dictate their morals.”

Fisher worked at the hospital from 1981 until October, 1986, when she resigned due to intolerable working conditions, Barry said.