Facts
Plaintiff Ashley Cummins, who is an openly gay woman, had a successful career as a police officer in St. Louis Missouri for eight years before moving to San Diego and getting hired by the City of National City and the National City Police Department (collectively, “NCPD”) in 2018. Officer Cummins also had a successful MMA career while at St. Louis and while at NCPD.
In her first six months at NCPD Officer Cummins began witnessing harassing and discriminatory conduct toward other female officers in her presence, including such things as male officers and male supervisors calling other female officers, “bitch”, “fat bitch”, “incompetent”, saying they “can’t believe [a certain male officer] fucked her”, and making statements indicating that the male officers wanted the female officers to quit. Ashley Cummins also witnessed male officers and supervisors take actions to place or leave female officers in dangerous situations, such as intentionally not backing them up when responding to dangerous calls. Despite this, Ashley Cummins excelled at her job, had good performance reviews and a series of commendations and awards for her work at NCPD.
At the beginning of 2020, Ashley Cummins was transferred to the “D” Squad at NCPD. Her supervisors were Corporal Cornejo and Sergeant DePascale. Corporal Cornejo began asking her – in front of all of the male officers on her Squad – detailed questions about how lesbians have sex. And, Corporal Cornejo and nearly all of the male officers on her Squad began exchanging graphic sexual jokes on a work group text thread which included Officer Cummins. The sexual jokes included images of sex toys, women in lingerie, a naked male porn star, phallic symbols, and comments about heterosexual and homosexual sex, including one text joking about statutory rape of a 15-year-old female.
By April 2020, Officer Cummins began to complain to her Corporal and then to her Sergeant about these texts, Corporal Cornejo’s sexualized comments, and about how the males on the Squad were starting to treat her with less respect than the other male officers. Neither supervisor did anything about these complaints, and the behavior continued. Cummins would continue to complain approximately 18 times to her Sergeant and to approximately 4 other supervisors over the remainder of 2020 while on D Squad. But, no investigation was ever initiated, and no disciplinary or corrective actions were ever taken.
As Officer Cummins continued to complain, the male members of the D squad, including her Corporal, began to ostracize her, which began to create officer safety issues. On one such occasion, multiple squad cars responded to a homicide scene with a suspect that admitted to killing someone with a bow and arrow. The male officers lightly patted down the suspect, cuffed him, and walked him down to be placed in a squad car. The male officers placed the suspect in Officer Cummins squad car while she was finishing up a witness interview at the scene. Officer Cummins then got in her car and planned to take the suspect to booking. The suspect started yelling, “I’m going to blow us up, I’m going to blow us both the f#ck up.” Officer Cummins then looked in her rear view mirror, saw the suspect had multiple pens sticking out of the front pocket in his shirt, and then realized that the suspect had not been properly searched. Officer Cummins immediately got out of her car, and called another officer over to properly search the suspect. During the pat down, the officer who was searching the suspect noticed a large lump in his back pocket. The lump turned out to be a grenade, and the bomb squad was called.
The following day, Officer Cummins reported the incident to her sergeant and requested that he go over pat down protocol with the D-squad officers. In response, Officer Cummins sergeant said, “most cops die in a car accident or responding to a DV (domestic violence) scene, you would you gotten blown up. That’d be a cool way to die.” This incident happened in October 2020. By December of 2020, Cummins was suicidal and almost took her own life while at work.
Three other female officers testified as percipient and “me too” witnesses for Plaintiff. They explained how the male officers who were named bad actors in Cummins’ case antagonize and ostracize females who are not sleeping with one of the male officers. Two of these female officers broke down in tears while testifying about this conduct by male officers at NCPD. One “me too” witness was a lesbian, and her lieutenant texted her a sexualized picture of him simulating oral sex on her.
Officer Cummins ultimately submitted a first written complaint to NCPD supervisors in January 2021, complaining of “hostile work environment”. She also verbally complained to the Chief of Police about it in 2021. Again, nothing was done; no investigations and no corrective actions were taken.
In addition to the harassment, Officer Cummins tried-out twice for the K-9 Unit at NCPD, but each time she was passed-over in favor of a male officer. The first time Cummins tried out, Officer Cummins, who is 5′ 2,” was given a bite suit to wear that was large enough to fit a man 6′ tall or taller. When asked if she could get a smaller suit, she was told “no.” She tripped and fell in the oversized suit, and so did not pass the physical portion of the K-9 tryout.
The second time Officer Cummins tried out, she had gone to SDPD and convinced them to allow her to borrow one of their bite suits that fit females. Using this smaller SDPD bite suit, Cummins passed the physical portion of the NCPD K-9 exam. However, NCPD did not select Cummins; instead NCPD selected a younger male officer with far less police experience and less time training with a k-9.
Cummins verbally complained about the k-9 selection process to her sergeant and to the Internal Affairs Sergeant (“I.A.”), telling them that “the department is sexist” and explaining that females do not get the same opportunities as males at NCPD, citing the k-9 tryouts as an example. Again, nothing was done.
Approximately a couple weeks after complaining to the I.A. Sergeant that the department is “sexist,” three male officers were involved in an Officer Involved Shooting (“OIS”) incident, where all three discharged their weapons. While all three of these officers were placed on leave of absence for approximately 2 days for a psychological evaluation, NCPD also forced Officer Cummins to take a psychological leave of absence – even though she was not involved in the OIS and did not discharge her weapon. And, when the I.A. Sergeant told NCPD’s psychologist why Officer Cummins needed to be psychologically evaluated, he cited the OIS and never mentioned the prior sexual harassment complaints that he received from Officer Cummins. The NCPD psychologist forced Officer Cummins to remain off of work for nearly 4 months, even though her male counterparts who were actually involved in the OIS were cleared to return within a couple of days.
The foregoing treatment prompted Officer Cummins to submit a 14-page internal grievance in December of 2021, summarizing her approximately 18 prior complaints and the treatment that prompted those complaints. But, when Cummins was finally permitted by NCPD to return to work in February 2022, she continued to experience ostracization by her Squad, witnessed the NCPD Captain engage in intimate conduct with a subordinate, and learned that her Sergeant told hiring officers at SDPD – where Cummins was seeking lateral employment – that “Ashley Cummins is trouble,” in an attempt to sabotage her chances at future employment. The workplace became so intolerable that, in April 2022, Officer Cummins resigned.
Contentions
PLAINTIFF’S CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff alleged a hostile work environment, disparate treatment, and retaliation based on sex.
DEFENDANT’S CONTENTIONS: Defendant denied all allegations.
Injuries
Severe emotional distress.
Result
Plaintiff’s verdict for $10,000,000.
The verdict represents:
Past Economic: $166,452
Future Economic: $1,397,519
Past Non-Economic: $4,218,014.50
Future Non-Economic: $4,218,014.50
Deliberation
1.5 days
Lenght
five weeks