Diocese Must Pay for Discrimination

The educational arm of the Catholic diocese was ordered Thursday to pay more than $350,000 because it sexually discriminated against a woman high school teacher who was fired from her post.

Elizabeth Gorsich won the award after a Superior Court jury found that the Diocese of San Diego Education and Welfare Corp. practiced sex discrimination and had broken the contract that Gorsich had at the University of San Diego High School.

Gorsich, now 46, was a 19-year veteran of the high school when she was fired at the end of the 1990 school year. School officials said she was terminated because she took a European vacation during the last eight class days.

However, Gorsich and attorney Richard M. Radosh were able to persuade the jury that the firing was the culmination of years of harassment from the school’s then-principal, Michael Wallgren.

“She acted responsibly in arranging with colleagues to substitute for her,” Radosh said after the verdict.

The attorney noted that two male teachers also missed a number of classes during “unauthorized absences” and were not fired.

Radosh said evidence presented during the one-week trial showed a “four-year pattern of bad-faith things that (Wallgren) did to her,” including calling her a troublemaker and planting gossip to determine if Gorsich was a rumor-monger.

“I felt there was a lack of respect for me professionally,” Gorsich testified.

The jury determined that Gorsich, who was chairwoman of the school’s Religious Studies Department when she was terminated, will receive $327,000 for lost wages and $37,000 in punitive damages for emotional distress.

Gorsich had originally asked for her job back, but Superior Court Judge Kevin Midlam ruled earlier in the case that he could not order a religious institution to reinstate her.

The attorney for the diocese, Stephen R. Mulligan, referred all questions to diocesan officials, who were not available for comment.