Bray Files Claim Against City Over Disclosure : Scandal: Former city planner claims publicity surrounding hush-money payment in City Hall sex case has ruined her reputation.

Charging that disclosure of her secret $100,000 payment in the San Diego City Hall sex-and-hush-money scandal ruined her “personal and professional reputations,” former city planner Susan M. Bray filed a claim Friday seeking at least $2.35 million in damages from the city.

In Bray’s first public action since the controversy surfaced one month ago, her attorney, Frank Rogozienski, filed the multimillion-dollar claim with the city’s Risk Management Department--a move that often is the first procedural step toward a lawsuit. If the city rejects Bray’s request, Rogozienski then could file a suit in court.

Bray’s claim came one day after a similar $2.75-million claim was filed by former Planning Director Robert Spaulding, with whom she had an affair that resulted in her filing an earlier sexual-harassment claim against the city.

In settling the harassment claim in March, former City Manager John Lockwood secretly agreed to pay Bray $98,531, and chose not to notify the City Council of the settlement in order to prevent it from becoming public.

Bray’s attorney, however, charged in Friday’s claim that city officials violated the terms of that confidential settlement last month when they “disclosed and publicized (its) existence, terms and provisions” after details about it had been leaked to the news media.

City officials also “made disparaging and defamatory statements” about Bray, despite knowing that she was “particularly susceptible to emotional distress and bodily injury . . . if the city did not keep its promises,” Rogozienski charged in the claim.

In the six-page claim, Bray asks for $2.35 million “plus future costs” for the “severe emotional and physical distress” that she allegedly has suffered. Rogozienski also contends that the intense publicity over the secret settlement and the circumstances that led to it have left Bray unable to find work and the subject of “ridicule and extreme embarrassment.”

Questioning Bray’s core argument, City Manager Jack McGrory stressed Friday that any liability over the breaching of the settlement’s confidentiality cannot be assessed until it is determined whether the original leaks came from the city or elsewhere.

“At some point, there has to be an investigation into whether the breach came from her end or the city’s,” McGrory said. “I think there’s a possibility it came from her end, because I seriously doubt it came from the city.”

In addition, McGrory argued that Bray herself may have violated the settlement by filing Friday’s claim, because, in accepting the secret payment, she agreed not to file additional claims against the city. Bray could contend, however, that the breach of the settlement’s confidentiality freed her from its other conditions.

McGrory also dismissed Rogozienski’s characterization of the settlement agreement and Bray’s acceptance of it as “pretty inaccurate.”

In the claim, Bray’s attorney charges that, between November, 1990, and March, the city “coerced and forced” Bray to resign her position as a Gaslamp Quarter planner and to accept the settlement.

At the time of the settlement, Bray was on disability leave as a result of the harassment suit. Rogozienski argues, however, that the city threatened to terminate her disability benefits and medical insurance coverage unless she withdrew her discrimination claim. “Having no economic alternative,” Bray accepted the settlement offer, according to the claim.

The city knew that Bray “desired to return to her job, but had been told by her treating physicians she should not return to the same hostile environment” spawned by the affair with Spaulding, Rogozienski charged.

Though Spaulding has characterized their affair as consensual, Bray contends that it was forced upon her and “created an uncertain and hostile work environment” in which she feared losing her job, the claim says.

Disputing that version of events, McGrory described Bray’s departure from City Hall as a “voluntary resignation.”

“If anyone was forcing her to accept the settlement, it may have been her attorney, not the city,” McGrory said.

In a related development Friday, Spaulding’s attorney, Michael Aguirre, filed a request with the city seeking the release of personnel records relating to 19 current or former top-level administrators and elected city officials who he alleges “may have fallen in the same category as Bob by having consensual relationships” with other city officials.

“These people weren’t seriously disciplined, and they certainly weren’t fired,” Aguirre said. “What we want to show is that Bob Spaulding was treated in a very inconsistent way from established city policy.”

Saying that he expects city attorneys to reject Aguirre’s request, McGrory labeled it “a very imaginative fishing expedition.”

“Just because Mr. Aguirre has decided to go on this expedition doesn’t mean that these employees lose their right to privacy,” McGrory said.