Woman Officer Settles Tailhook Scandal Lawsuit Out of Court

Paula Coughlin, the Navy lieutenant who first disclosed the sexual harassment that occurred at the 1991 Tailhook convention, reached an out-of-court settlement Thursday in her lawsuit against the association that sponsored the annual affair.

Her suit against the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, however, was still scheduled to come to trial Monday. If it does, it will be the first public airing of exactly what happened that night. More than 80 women joined Coughlin in accusing the Navy fliers who make up the association of fondling them and forcing them to run down a gantlet of revelers.

The settlement was announced in Las Vegas in a joint statement by Nancy Stagg, Coughlin’s attorney, and John E. Gormley, the attorney for the Tailhook Assn., which takes its name from an apparatus that helps jets land on aircraft carriers.

“This matter has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, the terms and conditions of which are confidential,” their statement said.

The Navy and Marine Corps investigated 140 cases of alleged sexual harassment and sexual assault, but all were dismissed or punished administratively without a court martial. Nevertheless, the Defense Department concluded that harassment and assault had taken place and that the convention was replete with indecent exposure and drunken grabbing and pawing of women.

Las Vegas U.S. District Judge Philip Pro has asked the lawyers for Coughlin and the Hilton Hotel to meet today to try to reach a settlement. But sources close to the case believe this is unlikely. Coughlin has asked for damages but has not specified the amount.

The 32-year-old Coughlin, whose accusations first brought attention to the scandal, resigned from the Navy last February, saying that “covert attacks” against her, presumably for blowing the whistle on the Navy fliers, forced her to quit.

Coughlin suffered a blow to her case last week when Pro ruled the Pentagon report on Tailhook was too flimsy to be used as evidence.

The report had said that 117 officers were “implicated in one or more incidents of indecent assault, indecent exposure, conduct unbecoming an officer, or failure to act in a proper leadership capacity.”