Home Contra Costa County Contra Costa County Approves $2.2 Million Discrimination Lawsuit Settlement Against District Attorneys Office

Contra Costa County Approves $2.2 Million Discrimination Lawsuit Settlement Against District Attorneys Office

by ECT
Diane Becton

Martinez, Calif. – The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors has approved an out-of-court  settlement in the lawsuit brought by Mary Blumberg, Alison Chandler, Jill Henderson, Mary Knox, and Rachel Piersig against the County and its District Attorney’s Office, Knox, et al. v.  County of Contra Costa, et al.

The County agreed to pay the five plaintiffs a total sum of $2.2 million dollars, which includes  costs and attorneys’ fees.

The settlement resolves all claims and includes a dismissal of the lawsuit. The County felt this was the best approach to allow the District Attorney’s Office to move forward.

Editors Notes

According to the lawsuit the District Attorney favored men and younger attorneys and this was set to go to trial in October–the complaint highlights several instances of less experienced men being prompted over the women–two who were previously accused of sexism.

According to the court documents, it stated that Diana Becton and the District Attorney’s Office acted in “bad faith” tactics and keeping records under seal during an election to prevent the public from reading them during an election.

Per page 65, the court documents show:

“It is also possible that this tactic was aimed at keeping potentially inflammatory deposition testimony from the public during a hotly contested election battle between Becton and Knox. Of course, it that were the purpose of Defendants’ conduct it would fly in the face of the principle that the public has an important right to this information.”

According to the complaint:

“Instead of building on gains made by the women in the office, Becton has reversed progress for women and has engaged in a pattern and course of gender and age discrimination by systematically demoting and failing to advance, promote and assign supervisory roles to qualified and accomplished prosecutors who are women, particularly, if those women have significant prosecutorial experience and tenure.”

It continues…

“Under Becton, women in the DA’s office have been stripped of the opportunity for career-advancing unit and supervisory assignments, case and specialty assignments, particularly in assignments to committees, training and leadership roles. Becton has promoted and assigned supervisory roles to significantly less qualified and less experienced men in contravention to Becton’ s promise to remedy the bias and discrimination against women in the office. Under Beeton’s administration, hard-fought gains which had been made by female prosecutors for representation in management have been obliterated.”

Claims:

  1. gender discrimination in violation of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, Cal. Gov’t Code §12940 (“FEHA”) (asserted by all Plaintiffs against all Defendants);
  2. age discrimination in violation of FEHA (asserted by Plaintiffs Knox, Piersig, Chandler and Henderson against all Defendants);
  3. failure to take action to prevent discrimination and retaliation based on gender in violation of FEHA (asserted by all Plaintiffs against all Defendants);
  4. retaliation for protected activity involving complaints about gender discrimination in violation of FEHA (asserted by all Plaintiffs against all Defendants);
  5. gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (asserted by all Plaintiffs against all Defendants);
  6. age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (as amended, 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634) (“ADEA”) (asserted by Plaintiffs Knox, Piersig, Chandler and Henderson against all Defendants); and 7) retaliation for protected activity involving complaints about gender discrimination in violation of Title VII (asserted by all Plaintiffs against all Defendants).

Orders

  • May 20, 2021: ORDER by Judge Joseph C. Spero granting in part and denying in part 49 Motion to Dismiss Second Amended Complaint and vacating motion hearing. The Initial Case Management Conference scheduled for May 28, 2021 at 9:30 a.m. is moved to 2:00 p.m. on that date. (jcslc1S, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 5/20/2021)
  • June 24, 2022″ ORDER by Judge Joseph C. Spero granting in part and denying in part 95 Motion for Summary Judgment; denying 96 Motion to Exclude Expert Testimony; denying 99, 121 125 Administrative Motions to File Under Seal; granting 101 Motion for Sanctions; striking dkt. no. 103-2. The parties shall file the supplemental materials relating to timeliness of Plaintiffs’ claims, described on pp. 49-50 of the Court’s Order, by July 29, 2022. Within 14 days, Plaintiffs shall file in the public record the documents sought to be sealed in the motions to seal that the Court has denied, as well as evidence of their fees and costs in connection with the Sanctions motion. (jcslc1, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 6/24/2022)

 

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5 comments

Jaimoe Aug 19, 2022 - 7:53 am

So she was hired because she’s a woman. Now it makes sense

RefinedWatch Aug 19, 2022 - 7:53 am

It’s a shame where people’s envy of another leads them. I’d like to know if these individuals next job, church, group, or ect has systemic gender inclusiveness. This is nothing more then political envy and greed at the cost of our tax payer money. Some of these people don’t even live in CoCo county… I.e. Piersig. I don’t agree with Beacon’s admin at all but if judges can get a slap on the wrist for profiting billions on sending kids to jail and y’all mad someone gets released as soon as they get in jail or 6 months then we’re all doomed. Shame on the BOS for approving this without any concrete evidence. Knox has been there for years and all of a sudden she wants to file this? Think about that.

ME Aug 19, 2022 - 8:32 am

The more you know….
All of these politicians are shady n crooked.

Two Wheeler Aug 19, 2022 - 12:40 pm

@RefinedWatch. Envy? Envy of a Soros-backed hack with no successful prosecutions, who sleeps at her desk during work time, and has parties at her home during Covid when we were all ordered to stay home and shelter in place? Not likely envy. More like disgust.
Maybe Mary and the other plaintiffs got tired of the political BS hires and transfers and used the court system to draw attention to it.
And how do judges profit from sending kids to jail? If there wasn’t evidence, the BOS wouldn’t have settled. Think about that.

Richard#2 Aug 20, 2022 - 4:59 pm

Are you serious!? Give 2.2 million dollars of Tax Payer dollars to Politicians who don’t like each other. Talk about corruption! This makes me so sick. Please give that money to the homeless of Contra Costa, before you ever
give it to the corrupt politicians.

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