A California appeals court has tossed out a $10 million jury award in a sexual harassment case against the Los Angeles Community College District, finding that a trial court judge’s sexist and racial comments to an attorney, along with evidentiary errors, prevented a fair trial.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert S. Draper’s comments to Janice P. Brown, a Black attorney who represented the college district, were made during a Feb.15, 2023, post-trial hearing, a 2nd District Court of Appeal panel said in an opinion Monday
Draper’s comments, in both open court and in his chambers, reflected his personal feelings and perspectives about societal and civil rights advances of Black Americans and the progress that has been made respecting women in the workplace, the opinion states.
As a result of Draper’s comments and prejudicial evidentiary rulings in the case, the LACCD sexual harassment suit has been sent back to Los Angeles Superior Court for a new trial.
Draper, through Superior Court officials, declined Tuesday to address the panel’s opinion.
Brown, an attorney with the law firm of Meyers Nave, condemned the judge’s conduct and said she is grateful the LACCD stood up for the truth and demanded a fair trial.
“The appellate court’s decision confirms that the original proceedings were compromised by conduct that had no place in a courtroom,” Brown said in an email. “This ruling is a reminder that fairness and integrity are not optional — they are the foundation of our legal system.”
LACCD said it is pleased with the panel’s opinion.
“The court’s ruling rightly acknowledged that both the trial and post-trial proceedings were affected by judicial conduct and evidentiary decisions inconsistent with California law,” LACCD said in a statement. “The district takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and remains committed to ensuring that any legal process involving our institution is both fair and grounded in fact.”
The appellate court panel said Draper’s comments to Brown were inappropriate and irrelevant, as race was not an issue in the 2018 sexual harassment suit filed by Sabrena Odom, a tenured professor at Southwest College. Odom alleged that Howard Irvin, who at the time was vice president of student services at Southwest, sexually harassed her from February to October 2017.
In October 2022, Draper presided over a three-week trial in the matter that included more than 20 witnesses. After deliberating less than a day, a jury found by “clear and convincing” evidence that Irving acted with malice toward Odom and awarded her $10 million in damages.
LACCD filed motions for a new trial and for partial judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
At a Feb. 15, 2023, post-trial hearing on the motions, which were denied, Draper initiated “extended, bizarre personal comments on racial matters” with Brown, the appellate panel said.
For example, Judge Draper, who is White, stated that the plaintiff and Irvin came from the same neighborhood, states the opinion.
“And I use the term that my wife says is not politically acceptable. I think they are politically acceptable, because I use terms like coal black and light brown because I don’t think those are bad terms,” the panel said, quoting Draper.
Draper also asked Brown, who was a new member of the LACCD legal team and was the only Black woman in the courtroom, if she was familiar with “miscegenation,” a term used to describe sexual relationships or reproduction between people of different ethnic groups.
“The reason that the South was able to stop civil rights for so long was the Southern senators who were against miscegenation,” Draper said, according to the panel.
Draper, who passed the bar exam 57 years ago and was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012, then veered off into a discussion about race and football at his alma mater, UC Berkeley.
“We had seven really good black players all lined up at split end,” Draper said, according to the appellate panel. “And the idea of one of them playing quarterback would have been crazy.”
During the afternoon session of the hearing, Draper asked Brown whether she had “a date or something” when she checked her watch, the panel said
Later in chambers, Draper repeated a line told to female secretaries at law firms when he was a young lawyer, stating “You better be able to (expletive) better than you can type.”
Draper’s statements and evidentiary issues led to a motion by the LACCD to disqualify him from future hearings involving the sexual harassment case. He issued a lengthy order finding there were no legal grounds for disqualification but recused himself from further proceedings.
According to the recusal order, Draper said that when he made the in-chamber comment about female secretaries doing a better job in giving sexual favors than typing, he was trying to explain that this type of behavior was acceptable at some firms in his early years of practice, the opinion states.
“I felt it a mark of substantial progress that it was now widely and correctly recognized as totally unacceptable,” Draper stated, according to the panel. “I thought this reference to historical progress would be considered a plus by Ms. Brown in an area her resume says is a vital interest of hers.”
The panel said Draper also made procedural missteps during the trial.
Those errors included admitting into evidence a 20-year-old Los Angeles Times article about Irvin’s misdemeanor convictions and testimony from a Southwest College student about her sexual harassment complaint involving a different administrator.
“We need not decide whether bias was the reason for his arbitrary and capricious evidentiary rulings; the rulings were an abuse of discretion irrespective of his motivations,” the panel said.
Draper’s rebuke by the panel is the latest controversy involving a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.
In February, the California Commission on Judicial Performance publicly admonished Judge Daviann L. Mitchell for repeatedly entering the private chambers of other jurists after hours to rifle through their confidential papers and try to access their personal computers.
Additionally, 17 attorneys in March supported a motion to disqualify Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy from an ongoing child sex abuse trial, citing alleged favoritism in the presence of jurors, racial bias and a lengthy history of abusive behavior.
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