Lawsuit Dismissed Against Water District

An employee’s lawsuit claiming the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District failed to protect him from sexual harassment has been dismissed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. But the attorney for David Sarti said his client will appeal the ruling handed down late last month by Judge Dzintra Janavs.

In the suit filed last year, Sarti said that his supervisors were aware that he endured same-sex harassment by a co-worker for a number of years, but did nothing to prevent it.

“He wants to feel safe in the working environment,” attorney Lee Feldman said of his client, who still works for the district. The district “did, or should have known about this. He was grabbed two times in front of supervisors.”

An attorney for the district, Irma Rodriguez Moisa, said the agency did react by transferring the alleged harasser to another facility, investigating the claim and providing sensitivity training for employees.

“There is a sense of relief,” Moisa said of the company’s reaction to the ruling. “What people felt best about was here was a court vindicating the district as to how the district handled the claim.”

She said the agency will take steps to recover from Sarti the $30,000 in legal fees it paid in fighting the lawsuit.

At least five former and current employees have sued the district in the last two years, alleging discrimination and harassment, both sexual and racial in nature.

Feldman, who represents the plaintiffs in those cases, said some were settled out of court, while others are still active.

In February, the district filed lawsuits of its own against three of its employees, requesting a court order allowing the district to open investigations into the employees’ suits and to discipline false claims without legal retaliation.

Since then, two of the counter-suits--including one filed in Ventura County against Sarti--were dismissed by judges who also found them to be without merit, Feldman said.