O.C. Teacher Wins $250,000 for Harassment

An Orange County Superior Court jury Friday awarded $250,000 in damages to a South County chemistry teacher who alleged that two school administrators sexually harassed her and then retaliated against her for complaining about their conduct.

After deliberating for nearly two days, the jury agreed that an assistant principal at Mission Viejo High School had harassed Sharon Daly Forslund and that she had been retaliated against professionally when she lost her classes and was later transferred.

With tears streaming down her face, Forslund, 51, of Lake Forest thanked and hugged jurors after the verdict was read. “I’m ecstatic. . . . I feel vindicated,” she said.

In her lawsuit, Forslund asserted that in 1985 and 1986, Principal Robert A. Metz occasionally hugged her, rubbed his hand along her face, sat in sexually suggestive positions and made comments about her sex life. She also testified that Assistant Principal Wilbur Chong snapped her bra strap, grabbed her buttocks and talked to her about oral sex, saying that “he could make me happy.”

When she began to raise complaints to colleagues and a union official, Forslund maintained, she was stripped of her class assignments and later transferred to a different high school.

The jury rejected the harassment charges against Metz, but found that Chong had in fact harassed her. And it found that both Metz and Chong--as well as the Saddleback Unified School District--had retaliated against her professionally for raising her complaints.

“We’re thrilled to bits,” said Forslund’s attorney, Carrie MacMillin. “This has been such a long and hard battle for her. She’s had 5 1/2 miserable years because of their retaliation.”

Defense attorney James P. Collins Jr. said he thought the verdict “was extremely excessive.”

Although he said it was too early to decide if there would be an appeal, Collins indicated that he would petition the trial judge to reduce the amount of the award.

As Collins criticized the verdict immediately after it was delivered, Metz, 52, of Mission Viejo and Chong, 54, of San Juan Capistrano quietly talked with their wives, who frequently attended the three-week trial.

Chong’s wife cried as the verdict was read, while Chong appeared visibly dismayed.

“It was simply her word against mine,” he said. “There was no evidence (of harassment) whatsoever. That’s what’s so amazing.”

But the jurors thought otherwise.

“With Mr. Metz there wasn’t enough evidence. But with Mr. Chong, we thought it was a clear-cut case,” said jury foreman Frederick Kather, 23, of Garden Grove. “He even admitted asking her out in 1982. For a married man, we thought that was inappropriate.”

Juror Andy Polana, 49, of Tustin said that “Mr. Chong did more explicit things to her.”

Despite the sexual harassment and retaliation findings, the jury decided not to award monetary damages based on those specific findings. Instead, the jury awarded $250,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress by Chong and the district.

Jurors, when interviewed afterward, differed on what caused the emotional distress.

Some linked it to the retaliation and harassment, while others tied it to the change in Forslund’s class schedule and her subsequent transfer to Trabuco Hills High School, where she currently teaches chemistry.

Metz said that the jury’s finding that he and other officials retaliated against Forslund “was totally in error. We were functioning in the best interests of the students.”

Officials with the Saddleback Valley School District declined to comment on the case Friday.

Collins had told the jury that Forslund fabricated the charges against his clients after the two administrators determined that she wasn’t qualified to handle five chemistry classes a semester, as had been recommended by the department chairperson.

In 1986, Forslund was taken off some of her chemistry classes and assigned to teach physical sciences. Then, a year later, she was involuntarily transferred out of Mission Viejo altogether and assigned to Trabuco Hills.

Collins said that classroom statistics backed up the decision to reassign Forslund, showing that more students dropped out of her classes than from other teachers’ and that she consistently gave out lower grades, indicating that she didn’t properly motivate her pupils.

Collins also pointed out to the jury that Forslund never made a formal sexual harassment complaint to the administrators or district officials until her class assignments were changed.

Forslund acknowledged that point, but said she did tell friends, colleagues and a teachers union representative about her bosses’ behavior before filing a formal complaint.

Forslund had several of her former Mission Viejo colleagues testify on her behalf. The only other chemistry teacher at the school and the science department chairman both said that they thought Forslund was a good teacher and that they did not understand the administrators’ decision to change her class schedule.

Juror Kather said they believed Forslund was probably a good teacher--”the kind of teacher that parents like and students don’t like because she is a tough grader. . . . We just felt that (the administrators) were retaliating against her, trying to get rid of a bad apple.”

Friday’s verdict marked the second time a South County school has been hit with a large award to a teacher for alleged administrative harassment.

Last month, Capistrano Unified School District settled a 10-year-old dispute with San Clemente High teacher Ruth Geis after an administrative judge determined that the 64-year-old English teacher’s civil rights were violated.

If the district did not settle the case, it would have been forced to forfeit $1.5 million a year in federal funds. As part of the agreement, Capistrano Unified agreed to pay Geis $12,000 in back pay and correct civil rights violations.

Times staff writer Lily Eng contributed to this report.