Salt Lake County has taken sufficient steps to prevent a recurrence of the type of gender harassment that spawned a costly civil lawsuit six years ago.
With that finding, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell declined Tuesday to issue an injunction ordering the county to revise its policies and procedures governing sexual discrimination and harassment.Attorneys for paramedics Karen K. Minchow and Cherie D. Sadler asked for the injunction after a jury found the county and several fire department supervisors and employees liable for a pattern of sexual harassment against the two women.
Minchow and Salder said they were subjected to unrelenting abuse and hostility from the time they started working at a Taylorsville substation in 1992 and that department officials did nothing to stop it.
Jurors last year awarded them $2 million in general and punitive damages, but legal limitations forced Campbell to cut the judgment to $750,000. The case was ultimately settled for $680,000.
However, the women's attorneys continued to seek an injunction against the county, arguing little had been done to change attitudes or practices relating to gender harassment.
"I think it's shocking how little training has been done," attorney Chris Wangsgard said at a hearing Tuesday afternoon.
He also contended policies that allowed department chiefs to ignore his clients' complaints have not been substantively changed. If anything, they are more complex and ineffectual, he said.
According to Wangsgard, the county is stonewalling because it refuses to acknowledge responsibility for what happened to Minchow and Sadler.
"They've never done the right thing, which would be to say, `This is what we did wrong in this case,' " Wangsgard said. Until that happens, he argued, the county can't provide its workers with adequate training on prohibited conduct.
But the county's lawyer, Camille Johnson - from the firm Snow, Christensen and Martineau - presented Campbell with evidence of policy changes, extensive training seminars and other actions aimed at preventing gender harassment.
All county employees and new hires have been required to familiarize themselves with policies prohibiting gender discrimination, whether it's sexual in nature or not, she said. The training is on-going and is even more extensive for supervisory personnel, Johnson said.
She cited the fact there have been no further incidents in the past six years as evidence the policy and procedure changes are working.
Campbell agreed, saying, "I believe Salt Lake County has done enough and that there is little likelihood of future violations. The county's policies adequately address gender harassment."