Court Preempts L.A.’s Job Bias Rule on Gays : Civil rights: Appellate panel upholds state codes barring discrimination and says they supersede local ordinance. But some lawyers say California law is not strong enough.

In a ruling that contained good and bad news for gay rights advocates, an appeals court has invalidated a 14-year-old Los Angeles ordinance barring job discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The ruling casts a legal shadow over similar laws in a number of California cities.

A state appeals panel, in an opinion received Thursday by attorneys, concluded that laws dealing with job discrimination are the province of the state rather than local governments, and that the Los Angeles ordinance was therefore preempted.

At the same time, however, the 2nd Appellate District’s ruling reaffirmed that the state labor code prohibits job discrimination against gay men and women, even those who are not open about their homosexuality.

“Parts of it are quite good and parts of it are quite bad,” gay rights attorney Jon Davidson said of the ruling, adding that he was concerned that the opinion undercut local authority. “Local jurisdictions have been deprived of any power to respond to local needs or local concerns by passing employment anti-discrimination” laws, Davidson said.

State protections also lack some provisions contained in the Los Angeles ordinance and those adopted by other cities. Under the Los Angeles law, victims who win their cases can be awarded attorney fees--but not under state law.

“It puts victims of sexual orientation discrimination at further disadvantage,” said attorney Thomas F. Coleman, who filed the appeal on behalf of a Los Angeles man who claimed that he had been harassed at a freight firm where he worked.

Los Angeles City Councilman and mayoral candidate Joel Wachs, who authored the 1979 municipal ordinance, said the city should make every effort to uphold it.

“We set a different climate in Los Angeles with this law,” Wachs said. “I’m going to insist that the city go forward in fighting to uphold this. Our law goes much further than the state’s. We covered a lot of areas that were not covered by the labor code. It’s critical that all of that be maintained.”

Attorneys in other cities with similar anti-discrimination laws--from San Francisco to San Diego--had not heard of the decision and were uncertain of its effect on their communities.

“Based on what I’m hearing--and I haven’t read the case yet--alarm does not seem to be in order,” said Phil Kohn, city attorney for Laguna Beach. “That’s if all the court is saying is that your remedy is state rather than local law. There are a lot worse things that could have happened.”

In the Bay Area, attorney Michael P. Adams reacted with concern. “This is going to take away one of the strongest weapons for gays and lesbians facing discrimination,” said Adams, a member of the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, a regional gay and lesbian Bar association.

“It doesn’t leave them without any defenses, because there is now a state law, but it is a blow nonetheless,” Adams said. He was referring to a law passed last year that amended the labor code to clarify that it prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Davidson also said the opinion would severely hurt the Human Relations Commission in San Francisco, which investigates discrimination complaints and takes administrative action. o The appellate court ruling came in the case of Jim Delaney, who sued Superior Fast Freight in 1990, claiming that he had been harassed and discriminated against for years because his fellow workers thought that he was gay. Delaney, a bisexual, never disclosed his sexual orientation, Coleman said.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed the case in 1990, prompting Delaney’s appeal. In the appellate decision, the panel reversed the dismissal and ordered the case remanded for further proceedings.

Paul Raymond Causey, Superior’s attorney, said the company, which denies Delaney’s allegations, will appeal the decision.

Staff writer Marc Lacey contributed to this article.