Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyer Blog

A physician assistant has been awarded $168 million in her California sexual harassment lawsuit - believed to be the largest award ever in such a case.

Our Los Angeles sexual assault attorneys applaud the jury's decision to send a clear message that such behavior should never be tolerated in the workforce.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the jury sided with the assistant by ordering her former employer, Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, to pay $42.7 million for mental anguish and lost wages and $125 million in punitive damages, or basically, to punish them.

The assistant reportedly had worked for a number of hospitals on the East Coast and in California before landing a position at Mercy, which is a branch of Catholic Healthcare West. She told a jury that while it was not uncommon for surgeons in the cardiac field to be somewhat vain and engage in what she termed "locker room humor." But this, she said, crossed the line into intimidation, bullying and retaliation - on top of the sexually inappropriate behavior.

She started the job, working with heart surgeons, in late summer of 2006. Within two years, she was fired after filing the last of 18 complaints regarding the doctors' inappropriate behavior, as well as patient care issues.

According to her testimony in U.S. District Court, one surgeon in particular targeted her relentlessly. According to her, the surgeon one time stabbed her with a needle and would repeatedly greet her in the morning by slapping her on the bottom and saying, "I'm horny." In another instance she recalled, that same surgeon broke the ribs of a patient who was under anesthesia because the surgeon was angry.

Another doctor reportedly called her a "stupid chick," demeaned her heritage and asked if she was joining the terrorist network, Al Qaeda.

Superiors at the hospital said that it was actually the assistant who was the problem. While a trial court did find her guilty of professional misconduct (which was the basis for her firing and subsequently, a denial of her unemployment benefits). The circumstances of that aren't clear. However, what we do know is that there is nothing an employee can do that will excuse sexual harassment from another party.

A Los Angeles sexual harassment attorney was quoted as saying that jurors were shocked by the entire workplace environment. Over the course of the trial, which spanned three weeks, a number of witnesses described a culture in which female employees were regularly denigrated.

Witnesses said because cardiac surgeons typically made the most money for the hospital, administrators were more willing to look the other way when it came to illegal behavior.

Sexual harassment laws are outlined in California Penal code 1604.11. Under the statute, an employer can be held liable for sexual harassment when they knew or should have known what was going on, and did nothing to stop it.