Jury Hears Closing Debate in Sexual Harassment Case : Trial: Nurse broke ‘conspiracy of silence’ to testify, her attorney says. But opposing lawyers assert that doctor’s conduct was neither pervasive nor severe.

The landmark case of a San Pedro nurse suing a doctor and a hospital after witnessing sexual harassment, but not directly experiencing it, went to the jury Friday after eight days of testimony.

In closing arguments, Peggy Garrity, lawyer for former San Pedro Peninsula Hospital surgical nurse Julie Fisher, told jurors that Fisher broke through “a conspiracy of silence” among nurses to tell of the intolerable conditions that inspired the lawsuit.

But lawyers for the hospital and Dr. Barry Tischler, a staff obstetrician and gynecologist, maintained that Fisher could not prove that many of the incidents occurred, and they stressed the testimony of several other nurses, who said that any hugging and touching was done with their consent as a way to crack the tension of the operating room.

Fisher alleged that observing Tischler repeatedly hugging and fondling nurses and making off-color sexual jokes and comments caused her severe emotional distress while she worked at the hospital from 1981 to 1986. She could possibly collect damages for incidents only between September, 1985, and 1986 under the statute of limitations imposed by state employment laws.

Fisher further charges that the hospital “ratified” the alleged misconduct by appointing Tischler to its board of directors. A lawyer for the hospital said it did not discipline Tischler because its investigations never corroborated Fisher’s charges.

The so-called environmental harassment suit did not get to trial until the state Supreme Court affirmed in 1990 the right of employees, even if they were not the direct target of sexual harassment, to seek damages against their employers. To do so, the court said, the employee must prove the harassment was pervasive and created a hostile workplace.

In her argument before Torrance Superior Court Judge Mort Franciscus, Garrity said such a hostile condition existed for Fisher.

“Good old Julie,” Garrity asserted, had to wage the fight against harassment in the surgical suite of the hospital alone because her fellow nurses were too intimidated by Tischler to complain.

Although several nurses testified for Tischler and the hospital that they were not offended by the doctor’s hugs and horseplay, Garrity said they made those comments under fear that they would lose their jobs or face other reprisals if they did not back the prominent physician.

“Perhaps (Fisher) did not fit into the conspiracy of silence, that culture of protecting the doctors,” Garrity said.

Garrity contended that lawyers for Tischler and the hospital, moreover, sought to “bamboozle” jurors with attempts to liken the operating room staff to that of a family quick to display camaraderie and affection.

If the operating room staff was like a family, Garrity said, then it must be a dysfunctional one.

“The victim in this case is Julie Fisher, and sometimes in these dysfunctional, sick families somebody has to stand up for the rest of them,” Garrity said.

At any rate, she said, it should not matter whether the other nurses felt harassed; Fisher did, and she suffered physical discomfort, alcohol problems and other duress because of it.

“Simply because it has been tolerated does not make it OK,” she said.

John Kelly, Tischler’s lawyer, and Linda Miller, the lawyer for the hospital, said Fisher had failed to produce a single witness to corroborate her belief that the doctor’s conduct was harassing.

Kelly said the nurses who took the stand did so “on their own volition,” and Miller said she doubted that anyone these days would lose their job for speaking out.

“These are not shrinking violets. These women have guts,” Miller said.

“If this conduct was so pervasive and so severe, why is she (Fisher) the only one who came in to testify?” Kelly asked.