Victor in Newspaper Sex Bias Suit Files 2nd Action Alleging She Was Harassed

Fresh from a huge victory in federal court, an Orange woman who last month won an $885,000 sex discrimination lawsuit against the Orange County Register is now pursuing a second action, claiming that newspaper officials harassed her in retaliation for taking them to court in the first place.

In a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Santa Ana, Susan Martinolich, 43, charged that her supervisors in the newspaper’s circulation department threatened to fire her, cut her commissions, told other workers to stay away from her and took other retaliatory measures in response to her filing of the sex bias claim in September, 1986.

Martinolich won that initial lawsuit last month when a federal jury in Los Angeles found that the newspaper had passed her over twice for promotion within its circulation deparment in favor of less qualified men.

The jury’s $800,000 award for punitive damages against the newspaper is believed to be one of the largest in the nation for a discrimination suit.

The award was particularly stunning, legal specialists said, because Martinolich was never fired from her job and because she sued the newspaper alone, rather than as part of a class-action group.

Attorneys for the Register are still planning to appeal that verdict as excessive and to move for a new trial.

But in the meantime, Martinolich is pursuing her second lawsuit against the newspaper for alleged retaliatory tactics that her attorney, Audrey Y. Ripley of Los Angeles, called “about as blatant as you could get.”

A federal judge refused to hear the retaliation charges as part of the earlier sex bias suit, forcing the separate lawsuit, which was filed last week.

Register attorneys referred all questions on the new lawsuit to the newspaper. Tom Peterson, vice president for circulation and a defendant in the suit, refused comment, saying: “I don’t think I want to dignify that with a response.”

Martinolich is now on medical disability leave from her job at the Register, suffering from depression, high blood pressure and emotional stress that she claims are the result of the alleged harassment she suffered after bringing the sex bias lawsuit.

“When (management officials) realized I wasn’t going to drop the lawsuit, they got mad and decided they were just going to make life miserable for me. And they succeeded,” she said in an interview.

In her lawsuit, Martinolich charges that newspaper management continued to pass her over for promotion, cut her commission rate for sales, levied false charges of fraud against her and took other unwarranted disciplinary action that made her the subject of some mistrust and isolation in the office.

In addition, Martinolich asserts that management put her under surveillance after she brought her lawsuit and instructed co-workers to report any conversation they had with her.

“It got to be a joke--don’t be seen talking to Martinolich because (management) will call you downtown to tell them what you talked about,” she said.