San Diego County staffer awarded $60,000 in harassment suit against assistant sheriff

A judge has awarded $60,000 to a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department employee who sued the county and a former assistant sheriff, alleging sexual harassment.

San Diego County Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal issued her ruling following a bench trial in her courtroom late last month in a civil suit brought by Louise LaFoy, an administrative secretary.

Bacal awarded LaFoy $50,000 for her sexual harassment claim, and $10,000 for her claim that the department failed to prevent the harassment.

LaFoy’s suit cited two incidents — the first in 2014, the second in 2017 — in which she said then-Assistant Sheriff Rich Miller improperly touched her buttocks during hugs in the workplace. According to court documents, she told a sheriff’s commander about the first hug, but that resulted in no formal action and she feared retaliation. After the second incident, she decided to file a formal complaint.

LaFoy said she was “overwhelmed and happy” about the judge’s decision, which she said was “an awesome moment because my character and my truthfulness was on trial.”

Her attorney, Jenna Rangel, said the ruling “emphasizes that employers have to take every report of misconduct seriously.”

“It is a big deal, and you need cases like these to show that this is a big deal,” she said.

In response to the ruling, the Sheriff’s Department issued a statement that it “does not tolerate sexual harassment of any kind and thoroughly investigates all reported or observed allegations.”

“We have clear policies that prohibit all forms of workplace harassment and we request our employees to immediately report any such conduct,” the statement said in part.

Miller, who retired in 2018, testified at trial and denied any inappropriate conduct. Attempts to reach him for comment this week were unsuccessful.

During his closing arguments, defense attorney William Songer, who represented Miller and the county, questioned the idea that Miller would “intentionally take liberties” with someone he was not very familiar with, and noted that a third person was present at the time of the 2017 hug.

At trial in April, LaFoy testified she tried to avoid Miller after the first hug, an embrace she said ended with pats to her bottom and left her “offended, angry and embarrassed.” The second hug was caught on surveillance camera, but attorneys said the recording did not show what happened below their waists when Miller lowered his hands.

LaFoy and a second department staffer, Holly Adams-Fallone, had separately filed internal complaints alleging harassment by Miller, who oversaw the detentions bureau.

Adams-Fallone sued the county in March 2018, saying she had been subjected to unwanted hugs and groping. LaFoy filed her suit three months later. Adams-Fallone’s suit settled the following year. LaFoy’s went to trial.

During the trial, Undersheriff Mike Barnett testified that he ordered Miller to stop giving hugs after LaFoy’s 2017 complaint, but said he never considered a policy to ban hugging across the department, saying it “would be like telling people they could not tell jokes in the workplace.”

“To ban it completely would be an overreach of management authority and would be looked upon unfavorably by employees,” he said.