First She Sued County as Plaintiff, Now as Lawyer

Susan Bouman Paolino is suing Los Angeles County--again.

This time it’s not the Sheriff’s Department she’s after, it’s Parks and Recreation.

Paolino, the onetime deputy whose sexual harassment suit against the sheriff led to a sweeping consent decree, is an attorney now. Among her clients are two Los Angeles County lifeguards, who are suing because they allege they were sexually harassed.

Paolino delights in the irony: Once again she is fighting the system but this time she’s the lawyer rather than the plaintiff.

But she says she completely understands the lifeguards’ complaints. After all, she says, she lived with constant harassment too.

She retired from the Sheriff’s Department 10 years ago, after taking a stress-related disability leave. The chest pains, the headaches, the overall discomfort, she says, came, not only from years of sexual harassment, but also from the years of fighting it.

Paolino, 52, sued the department in 1980. She says she was unfairly passed over for promotion to sergeant, despite her qualifications.

The department lost the “Bouman case,” as it is still known. She received the promotion, plus close to $200,000 in back pay, along with other payments, and the department was left with numerous court orders and a consent decree that governs its treatment of women.

Even after she won the lawsuit, Paolino says, the harassment didn’t stop. Instead, she says, she was blacklisted. Many colleagues, including some women, distrusted her.

But in the years since she left the department, Paolino has maintained strong relationships with deputies and she closely monitors the department’s progress--or lack of it--on the consent decree that grew out of her suit.

“It is unbelievable to me that we went through the lawsuit, they found them guilty, they agreed to the consent decree and then they’ve done absolutely nothing,” Paolino said in an interview from her home in San Diego. “They meet, they fight and they try to get around it.”

Paolino became a sheriff’s deputy, she says, because she wanted a stable income with health insurance to support herself and her young son. She says she had no relatives in law enforcement, although she says, laughing, “four of the five kids in my family had been arrested.”

She was among one of the first groups of women on patrol. It was a naturally tough transition for the male-dominated paramilitary organization. Many male deputies, she said, wouldn’t talk to her, let alone volunteer to work with her.

It was like being the last kid to be picked for the flag football team. Every day.

The harassment grew worse, she says. Pornographic pictures were put in her mailbox. Male supervisors refused to allow her to work at night, saying women shouldn’t. And, over the radio, male deputies would say: “Take a Midol.”

“There was this double standard,” Paolino said. “They just really didn’t want women.”

Does she think law enforcement will change, that male deputies will accept their female partners and bosses? “Not in my lifetime,” Paolino says. “It’s that mentality and it’s still very, very prevalent.”

But a few bright spots remain in her memory. Paolino fondly recalls receiving a bouquet of flowers at her desk with an unsigned note: “Thanks, from those who aren’t brave enough.”

To Paolino, however, another irony remains: The department could have avoided a consent decree and numerous other court judgments. On the eve of her sexual discrimination trial, she offered to settle for a promotion and $20,000.

The county, which has spent nearly $19 million on the case so far, rejected the offer.