Deputy’s Wife Settles Suit Over Unpaid Duties

The wife of a deputy sheriff who complained that she was forced to work without pay at a Los Angeles County sheriff’s substation in a remote mountain pass has settled a federal court lawsuit against the department for close to $1.1 million.

When she was stationed with her husband in Gorman, Caryn Suhr said, she performed tasks from cleaning jail cells to answering phones without compensation because the Sheriff’s Department told her it was expected of the wives of deputies assigned to the Tejon Pass area, 60 miles north of the San Fernando Valley on the Kern County border.

Suhr and her husband, Mark, who now live in Palmdale, sued on grounds of sex discrimination and other violations of federal labor laws. The complaint also accused sheriff’s officials of harassing and punishing Mark Suhr because of his wife’s efforts to collect compensation for her work.

The couple and their attorneys were awarded the settlement of $1,085,000 on July 15 in an out-of-court agreement, according to the Los Angeles County counsel’s office.

The settlement ended appeals filed by both sides after a federal court jury last year decided in favor of Mark Suhr’s harassment complaint, even though a judge dismissed Caryn Suhr’s portion of the suit, ruling that the labor she performed was voluntary.

“We are very pleased with the outcome and so glad that it’s over,” Suhr said. She and her husband, who is a patrol deputy assigned to the Antelope Valley station, did not discuss the case until now because, they said, they were recovering from the stress of the two-year legal battle.

While the Sheriff’s Department concedes no wrongdoing, Caryn Suhr feels that she won because “that practice is not going on up there anymore. It was so wrong.”

The Sheriff’s Department had argued that tasks performed by deputies’ wives were voluntary and that families were compensated by living rent-free in housing provided by the county at the substation compound in the small town alongside the Golden State Freeway.

Wives of deputies had traditionally performed the services since the substation was established in the 1940s. During her 2 1/2 years in Gorman, Caryn Suhr had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Sheriff Sherman Block to pay the women for their labor.

Caryn Suhr said she was interviewed by the Sheriff’s Department along with her husband when he applied for the assignment. Among the questions, she said, was whether she could handle a gun. She said she could.

Sheriff’s officials said the Gorman assignment was considered a plum by many deputies because it offered rent-free living, plus an annual bonus. The station initially was manned by one deputy until the veteran assigned there in 1978 was shot to death. Deputy Arthur Pelino, the father of six children, was slain with his own gun by a crazed motorist, who then allowed himself to be locked into a cell by the deputy’s unarmed wife.

Since then, two deputies have been assigned to the station, both with police dogs. Since the Suhrs’ suit was filed, three deputies now share duties and the family accommodations have been eliminated.

Caryn Suhr said she gave up a $12-an-hour supermarket position to work as a backup with her deputy husband in Gorman from May 1990 to November 1992. Another deputy and his wife alternated duties at the remote station every four days.

The suit filed by the Suhrs gained nationwide attention in 1994, particularly from women’s rights organizations. A national women’s magazine named the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to its “Hall of Shame.” Carolen Bailey, executive director of the International Assn. of Women Police and an assistant commissioner of the Minnesota public safety department, called the Suhrs’ story “really incredible to believe, especially in these times.”

Caryn Suhr thanked the women’s groups for encouraging the couple in their battle against the county. “They made us both feel that there were lots of people that were backing us,” she said. “That helped out tremendously.”

Assistant County Counsel Robert Ambrose said the award is less than the amount the county could have been forced to pay if the issue had proceeded through the appellate court. Even though a federal judge dismissed Caryn Suhr’s claims, Ambrose said an appellate panel could have ordered a new trial. The issue of women working without pay “is what prompted the whole lawsuit,” Ambrose said.

Ambrose said the final agreement represents a compromise. The Suhrs originally had sought $5 million in compensation and damages.

“We took the highs and the lows and worked out a number in between. None of us knows how it would have actually gone” if it had been settled by the courts, Ambrose said.

Lt. Dennis Burns, an assistant to Sheriff Block, said the settlement “was in the best interest of everybody--the Sheriff’s Department, the county, the taxpayers, the Suhrs--everybody. . . . Nobody was happy but everybody was satisfied.”