Correctional Officer’s Disability Discrimination Suit Heads to Trial After Court Rejected the County of Santa Barbara’s Dismissal Attempt
Torres v. County of Santa Barbara, a discrimination lawsuit by a Santa Barbara County correctional, is headed to trial. We defeated the defendant’s Summary Judgement on June 14, 2023. A Summary Judgment is a motion where the defendant tries to get rid of the case without having to go to trial.
The Plaintiff’s suit claims that the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department discriminated against her because of the back injury she sustained, and reaggravated, on duty – a very common injury and aggravation on the job. When Torres refused to sign paperwork for a new workers’ compensation claim because she believed doing so would amount to claiming a new injury unrelated to her prior injury, her Lieutenant signed the paperwork on her behalf. The Department then submitted the claim form to the Office of the District Attorney for a comp fraud investigation. Torres was subsequently charged with five counts of felony workers’ compensation fraud based on the document the Department created and signed for her. This was what we allege to the discriminatory and retaliatory acts. After two long years, all charges were dismissed due to what the criminal judge called a “woeful lack of evidence.”
In further discrimination and retaliation based on Torres’ disability, the Department opened an Internal Affairs Complaint regarding the same conduct that was the subject of the bogus criminal allegations. As a result of stress from the continued discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, Torres was unable to bear it anymore – her health suffered, and she was forced to resign from the Department.
We will now seek to right this wrong for Deputy Torres.
Partner Matthew McNicholas and Senior Lawyers Douglas Winter and Loren Nizinski are representing Torres in the lawsuit. Trial is scheduled for October 4, 2023.
As one of the leading trial lawyers in California, Partner Matthew McNicholas represents victims in a range of areas, including personal injury, wrongful death, employment law, product liability, sexual assault and other consumer-oriented matters. Learn more about his professional background here.