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The Pasadena Star-News | Thu 10/16 05:51pm PST | Anissa Rivera
The California Supreme Court has chosen not to review a judgment against the city of West Covina, confirming an earlier jury verdict, which awarded more than $4.1 million in damages to Larry Whithorn, a former West Covina fire chief who sued the city for wrongful termination in March 2020.
The decision from the state’s highest court came on Wednesday, Oct. 15, closing down the last available appeal for the city, which on Aug.18 filed for the petition to review.
On July 9, the Second District Court of Appeal upheld the jury verdict in favor of Whithorn, a 28-year veteran of the West Covina Fire Department. The jury delivered its verdict on May 5, 2023.
Milan Mrakich, acting city manager for West Covina, said the state Supreme Court decision this was disappointing.
“While the outcome was not unexpected, given the rarity in which the Court grants review, we believed the legal issues warranted further consideration,” Mrakich said in an email. “The city respects the judicial process and will fully comply with its legal obligations.”
But Whithorn’s legal representatives celebrated the victory, and a long legal journey.
“I honestly could not be any happier for such an amazing client, who epitomized who we should have as a leader in our community,” said one of Whithorn’s attorneys, Anthony Nguyen, of Shegerian & Associates. “On behalf of not just myself, but our whole firm who has worked with him and gotten to know him, this is well-deserved after a long, hard-fought battle.”
Whithorn had argued he was fired in 2019 because of age discrimination and retaliation for reporting a hostile work environment. The jury returned verdicts in favor of Whithorn on five claims: disability discrimination, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination and retaliation, “whistleblower” retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Whithorn started at the West Covina Fire Department in 1991 as a 21-year-old firefighter/paramedic before earning the top job in 2014. He reported that after he spent about eight months on medical leave in 2017, city officials allegedly began harassing him about being an “absentee chief.”
According to the lower court’s ruling, during Whithorn’s 2017 medical leave, in which he underwent four surgeries, Wu expressed concerns to former City Manager Chris Freeland multiple times that Whithorn was an “absentee chief,” and pressured Freeland multiple times to fire Whithorn.
In the same year, the West Covina Firefighters Association issued a vote of no confidence against Whithorn for allegedly threatening to demote union members or to change their schedules and duties for picketing City Hall.
Ultimately, according to the appellate ruling, Wu approached Whithorn at city events in the months following his leave, and “interacted with Whithorn in a way that made Whithorn uneasy.”
On two separate occasions, Wu was said to have warned Whithorn that “change is coming.”
A flurry of high-level resignations on March 2019 saw then-City Manager Chris Freeland, Human Resources Director Edward Macias and Finance Director Marcie Medina leave city service. According to the appellate decision ruling, then-City Manager Freeland had resisted firing Whithorn and was forced by Wu and other council members to resign.
Wu said in reaction to the Court of Appeal ruling that Whithorn’s departure was the culmination of a process that included an internal city survey, where rank-and-file expressed disapproval of the former chief, whose removal was affirmed with a unanimous city council vote.
Wu has said he’s become the “scapegoat” in the case, noting that he hadn’t much interaction with the former chief.
The appellate decision also stated Wu encouraged David Carmany to apply for city manager, and that Carmany was hired after agreeing that he would be willing to “fire a popular department head.” Seventeen days later, Carmany fired Whithorn.
Carmany’s tenure as city manager ended in May 2023, when he resigned, citing “personal reasons,” just ahead of a closed session City Council meeting meant to evaluate his job performance. His successor, Paulina Morales, served a year and four months before being fired in May.
Mrakich was hired the same day of Morales’ firing.
Nguyen, the attorney, said it would behoove the city of West Covina to pay Whithorn the judgment earlier since it acrues interest daily.