SATICOY : Settlement Checks Sent in Sex-Bias Case

In a settlement to a 1987 lawsuit, representatives of the Saticoy Lemon Assn. have mailed checks to 75 former packinghouse employees who said they had been denied jobs because they were women, the women’s attorney said.

Paul Strauss, an attorney with a Chicago law firm that specializes in employer disputes, said the women would each receive a check for $7,500, according to the settlement of the sex-discrimination suit. He said the settlement was not more lucrative because the jobs the women had sought were low-paying.

“That’s about a year’s wages,” Strauss said.

Still to be decided by the court in the class-action suit is Strauss’ fee, which will be paid by Ventura-based Saticoy Lemon.

Keith Hunsaker, an attorney with a Los Angeles firm that defended Saticoy Lemon, said Strauss had submitted a bill to the court for $1.8 million.

“The amount he is seeking is much larger than what will be paid to the women in the class-action suit,” he said. “We are arguing that he should get much less than that.”

Under the settlement, 75 women will receive the checks. The women, former workers at two Oxnard packinghouses acquired by Saticoy Lemon in 1986, claimed that they had been passed over for jobs that were awarded to less-experienced men.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies ruled in August that Saticoy Lemon had violated federal anti-discrimination laws by hiring men for higher-paying positions than women.

The packinghouse is also under a court order to cease discriminatory practices, such as refusing to take applications from women for jobs normally filled by men.

Rosemary Madrid of Oxnard, one of the women in the suit, said she is not working this time of year because the full lemon picking and packing season had not yet begun. She said the money will help her family.

“I have four children,” she said. “That’s what the money is for, the children.”