Fired College Teacher Revs Up for New Trial

For several years, Brian McMahon has waged a pitched battle against his former employer, El Camino College in Torrance, which he says retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on a handful of phantom students who were enrolled in classes threatened with closure because of dwindling enrollment.

The community college has never confirmed or denied that there were bogus students in the classroom during the late 1980s and early 1990s, said college spokeswoman Mary Ann Keating. However, an investigation by an outside law firm commissioned by the college concluded that there were “isolated, albeit serious problems” concerning a few phantom students in the automotive and business math classes in the 1990-91 school year.

This year, the college fired McMahon from his $60,000-a-year job as a tenured auto mechanics teacher. Now he is living in his garage while he rents out his house to make ends meet.

Nonetheless, McMahon felt a twinge of victory when the 2nd District Court of Appeal issued a ruling late last month that he can return to Superior Court to try to prove that he was retaliated against because he blew the whistle on alleged phantom students. It was particularly sweet news because McMahon, 39, who normally finishes a workday with grease under his fingernails, donned a pinstriped suit and represented himself in front of the appeals court.

“I find it hard to swallow that there were students who came to class, worked their butts off and got a B, when the empty chair next to them was getting straight A’s,” said McMahon, who added that he was asked to pad his student roster with phantom students, but only enrolled one.

McMahon began working at the institution in 1985, teaching classes in auto collision repair and auto painting and refinishing. For five years, he said in court papers, department administrators told instructors to give passing grades to students who never showed up for class after registering. Specifically, he said in his lawsuit, he was told by one school official to “enroll your mother if you have to.”

The reasons fake students were added to the classes, McMahon said, were to get more government funding, maintain classes faced with cancellation because of low enrollment or grant college credit to students who never showed up.

The college last week did not confirm or deny these allegations.

After receiving tenure in 1989, McMahon said, he thought it was safe to complain to school officials about the practice. But the college’s response was that the deception was not happening and that McMahon was a troublemaker.

Then little things began to happen, according to McMahon’s lawsuit. In October 1992, he said, his request for a sabbatical to study law was canceled before he was able to take it.

He also began to expand his complaints to the theft of car parts from the auto repair shop. McMahon charged in his suit that division Dean Ron Way of the auto department stole parts from cars donated to the college and placed them on his own car.

Contacted by The Times, Way said he did take a muffler and headlight lens from a donated vehicle after receiving permission from school officials. He said he eventually repaid the college the market value of the parts.

Later, Superior Court Judge Bob Hight threw out that portion of the lawsuit.

McMahon also charged that his car was cut in half and that half was thrown in a dumpster. His name and photos were removed from class schedules, he added. McMahon also said he found a .50-caliber bullet placed in a jewelry box in his desk drawer. And he discovered an AK47 assault rifle manual slipped into the pocket of a lab coat hanging inside his locked office, he said.

Hight also dismissed these charges from the suit, and the appeals court concurred.

“I put up with a lot of stuff,” McMahon said in a recent interview. “By 1993, I had to do something about it.” So the auto body teacher filed his lawsuit asking for the financial equivalent of the sabbatical that was canceled and more than $50,000 in damages. He is now asking for his job back too.

When the case initially went to trial last year, McMahon produced a signed deposition from someone who said she had been a phantom student. Judith Reid, who owns a South Bay auto body shop, admitted in the legal statement that in 1990 and 1991 she received grades for three auto collision repair classes and one business math class she never attended.

Attorney Dennis Walsh, representing the college, argued in court that it was not expressly against the law for El Camino or any other public institution to have bogus students.

Because McMahon could not prove that the college had obtained any additional local, state or federal funds by having a few extra phantom students, Superior Court Judge Hight dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous and ordered McMahon to pay the college’s $160,000 in attorney fees. The appeals court threw out the $160,000 assessment.

After the initial trial, the college began preparing papers to dismiss the auto body instructor. In February, the Board of Trustees recommended that he be fired. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave while the state office of administrative hearings reviewed his case.

In September, the hearing officer concurred with the college, and McMahon was dismissed from his job, said school spokeswoman Keating.

From his small garage stuffed with legal documents, McMahon is preparing for his new trial, which will be strictly on any retaliation he may have suffered for complaining about phantom students. He is hoping to win this time.

“I don’t think there is a jury around that won’t be sympathetic,” he said. “If they have taken a class and struggled to get a C, they are going to be mad as hell that someone got an A because their dad is somebody or they are an athlete who can jump and run.”