Employee Wins $885,000 in Register Sex Bias Suit

A former Orange County Register circulation supervisor who says she was passed over for promotion twice in favor of less qualified men won $885,000 from the newspaper Wednesday in a sex-discrimination award that legal specialists called one of the largest of its kind in the nation.

“I’m just ecstatic,” said Susan L. Martinolich, 43, of Orange. “This means that women at the paper are going to have to be taken more seriously, particularly in the circulation department. Women aren’t going to be afraid to stand up and be counted.”

Lawsuits seeking to show sex discrimination in employment practices are extremely tough to prove and rarely go to trial, experts say. But Martinolich’s victory was particularly stunning in the size of the punitive damages--$800,000--and because she was not fired and was suing the newspaper alone rather than as part of a class-action group, legal experts in the field said.

Judge Accepts Verdict

In Los Angeles on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew, finding that Martinolich was in fact discriminated against based on gender, accepted with only minor variations a jury verdict handed down the previous day after a 2-week trial.

Register officials expressed anger and surprise at the verdict against them and denied any wrongdoing in their treatment of Martinolich, who still works at the newspaper but has transferred out of the circulation department.

“It’s a miscarriage of justice, plain and simple,” said Tom Peterson, vice president for circulation. “My reaction is one of absolute shock, and so too with everyone in the department and this newspaper. We don’t believe for a minute that we did anything to discriminate against her.”

Peterson and the newspaper’s lead attorney in the case said they expect to appeal the jury’s decision.

“I’d be very surprised to see this stand up on appeal,” said defense attorney Kasey Haws of Costa Mesa. “I’m confident that the finding went completely against the weight of the evidence; there simply was no discrimination.”

Martinolich began working in the Register’s circulation department in the summer of 1983 and within 2 years had worked her way up to assistant zone manager, earning several commendations from the newspaper along the way for her performance, she said.

Passed Over for Job

When the job of zone manager opened up at the end of 1985, she assumed the position on an acting basis for several weeks. But Martinolich--without being interviewed--was passed over for the post in favor of a man from outside the paper, she alleged. And when the position later became vacant again, she met with similar results.

Register attorneys maintained at the federal court trial that Martinolich never applied for the job. But Martinolich and her lawyer countered that she did in fact file a formal application, which was intentionally lost or destroyed.

They also presented anecdotal evidence to suggest that higher-level supervisors in circulation expressed biases toward women and their capacities to carry out managerial assignments.

Pattern Claimed

Racine also charged in an interview that Martinolich’s case fits into a pattern of discrimination within the Register circulation department that has seen women blocked from higher positions with the exception of a few isolated cases of “tokenism.”

“The women are just treated differently than the men in the department,” Martinolich said in an interview.

The jury returned $800,000 in punitive damages against the Register and recommended general damages of $120,000, although the judge granted only $85,000 in general damages. The jury also rejected Martinolich’s claims that she was discriminated on the basis of age because supervisors said she was too old for the promotion.

Several lawyers around the country who specialize in discrimination complaints said the verdict clearly marked one of the largest punitive awards in the state for a discrimination case and among the highest in the country.

A statistical comparision of monetary verdicts was not available Wednesday, but Gloria Allred, a nationally known attorney in Los Angeles, estimated the verdict to be in the top 1% of all discrimination awards nationwide.

Added Wayne Ooutten, a New York attorney and executive officer with the Plaintiff Employment Lawyers Assn.: “There’s no doubt that this is among the highest for discrimination cases. That’s quite substantial.”

Martinolich, who transferred to the telemarketing department, is now on disability leave from the Register for high blood pressure that she says she suffered as a result of her employment problems.