Suit Charges City Animal Agency Bias : Courts: A former worker claims she was subjected to sexual and racial harassment.

A former city employee has filed a discrimination suit charging that the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation mistreated and fired her because she is female and an American Indian.

The suit is one of a number of sexual or racial harassment complaints against the department. Four complaints of discrimination were filed by Animal Regulation employees with the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission in the last two years, and three of them were upheld. The department’s general manager, Robert I. Rush, confirmed Wednesday that another sexual harassment allegation is under investigation.

The suit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court was brought by Ayleen Neuenschwander, 36, of West Hills, who claimed that she had been subjected to a “continuing course of sexual harassment, including derogatory remarks about women in general” while employed as a clerk-typist in the city’s West Valley shelter in Chatsworth.

She was fired in 1988 soon after filing a federal discrimination complaint. At the time, she claimed that she was dismissed because she had filed the complaint, while city officials, according to records, contended that their action was based on her poor performance.

In February, 1991, the city Civil Service Commission found that Neuenschwander had suffered discrimination and then retaliation after she filed complaints about her treatment.

Similar complaints filed by Kathyrn Schamber, a white animal control officer, and Brian Johnson, a black animal control officer, were upheld in 1990. A fourth complaint, leveled by Albert Carrillo, was withdrawn by Carrillo after he found a job in a different city agency.

According to commission records, all three complaints involved the same shelter and a department supervisor, Marshall Vernon. Investigators for the commission found a “highly polarized work force.” Vernon was accused of displaying a pinup photo of scantily clad women on his desk and making derogatory sexual references to women. Vernon was said to refer to Johnson and other employees from the South-Central area as “gorillas,” and testimony showed that the word nigger had been painted on Johnson’s locker.

Neuenschwander alleged that when she was fired, Vernon tauntingly addressed her as “Little Miss American Indian.”

Rush said he had no comment on Neuenschwander’s lawsuit. Rush would not say if any disciplinary action was taken against Vernon, and said: “We’ve got a great department. We’ve got some great employees.”

He said the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also investigated Neuenschwander’s complaint and found no violation of federal law.

Neuenschwander’s attorney, Glenn E. Rothner, said the suit was filed because the city commission’s action did not result in Neuenschwander getting her job back or getting back pay. According to commission minutes, when the complaint was upheld, commissioners noted that they “could only make recommendations with no power to order” any restitution.

“We have no choice but to sue,” Rothner said. “We’re in a situation in which even if the city determines it has discriminated against an employee, the city says it is powerless to remedy its own discrimination.” The suit asks that Neuenschwander be reinstated in her job and awarded unspecified monetary damages for lost earnings and stress.

Neuenschwander said she had had no employment problems before working for Animal Regulation, but had trouble finding a job after the department fired her. “To go through something like this has been humiliating and embarrassing,” she said.

Johnson, too, has a discrimination suit against the department in Los Angeles Superior Court. The suit, filed in 1989, has been on hold while the EEOC was investigating the matter, according to his attorney, Philip Brimble. Since no determination has been made, the suit will proceed, he said.