Retaliation, Harassment Trial Goes to the Jury

The former director of the Orange County office on aging was a dedicated, industrious employee intent on helping seniors when she was drummed out of her job by vindictive county executives, an attorney said Wednesday in closing arguments of a retaliation lawsuit.

Pamela Mokler also was a victim of sexual harassment by Supervisor Chris Norby, who made inappropriate comments about her appearance and once touched her breast, said attorney H. Bryan Card.

But Norm Watkins, the attorney representing the county, painted a different picture. He told jurors that Mokler was justifiably fired because she violated county policy in negotiating contracts, including one involving a former boyfriend, and that there was no truth to the claim that she had been harassed by Norby.

The jury of six men and six women began deliberations late Wednesday in the 20-day trial before Superior Court Judge W. Michael Hayes. Mokler is asking for about $14,000 for two months’ worth of lost pay, plus unspecified damages.

“There is not one shred of evidence that she thought what she did was wrong,” Card told jurors of Mokler’s handling of contracts. He said she was forced out by county managers who wanted to gut her office and became angry when she refused to go along with it.

Mokler also deserves to be protected as a whistle-blower, Card said, because she protested organizational changes in her office that she believed violated state funding requirements.

Watkins said the county put Mokler on administrative leave in 2003 to investigate whether she had violated county policies in arranging for and awarding the disputed contracts.

“The money was promised [to a bidder], the bid was rigged, and she got caught,” he told jurors. “The evidence is also crystal clear that that conduct won’t be tolerated by the county. Public funds are sacred.”

Watkins said her then-supervisor, William Baker, testified that Mokler never came to him to complain about the alleged behavior by Norby, nor did she file a formal complaint.

Mokler sued the county in January 2004 for wrongful termination, breach of contract, sexual harassment and retaliation for complaining about alleged county violations of law.

Hayes dismissed the wrongful-termination and breach-of-contract allegations before the civil trial began but allowed a jury to consider the accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation.

Among those attending Wednesday’s closing arguments was Dick White, chairman of the county’s Senior Citizens Advisory Council during Mokler’s tenure. He said the arguments were compelling on both sides but that his sympathies lay with Mokler.

“She brought tremendous vision, energy, intelligence and devotion to her advocacy of seniors,” he said.

Norby, who also was in court Wednesday, said he was accused of things that never happened.

“It’s a shakedown of the county by someone who was rigging bids,” he said. “Sexual harassment is a serious charge. It didn’t happen.”