The agency that oversees the El Dorado Hills Fire Department has agreed to pay $335,000 to settle a lawsuit by a veteran firefighter who alleged a “culture of sexism” led to rampant sexual harassment and discrimination against her, newly released documents show.
LisaMarie Mason, who began her firefighting career with the department in 2007, agreed to the settlement to drop a federal lawsuit she had filed in Sacramento in February 2018, according to documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee on Thursday through a California Public Records Act request.
The settlement by the El Dorado Hills County Water District and former Fire Chief Dave Roberts requires that Mason keep the details of the agreement “strictly confidential” and requires her to refrain from making “defamatory or otherwise injurious statements” about the fire department to current or future employees or pay damages of $10,000 for each breach of the agreement.
The department denies Mason’s claims, and issued a statement to The Bee saying the settlement “will have no impact on the district’s general fund.”
“Consistent with our practice of refraining from comment on personnel matters, the district has nothing further to say on this matter,” district board President John Giraudo said in a prepared statement. “The El Dorado Hills Fire Department is committed to protecting the privacy rights of our employees and providing a harassment-free work environment.”
Roberts, who has previously declined to comment on Mason’s claims, retired from the department less than a month after she filed her lawsuit accusing him and others of harassment and discrimination because she was a woman.
“This country went wrong when it allowed women to vote,” Mason’s lawsuit claims Roberts said to her. The suit also alleged that when he discovered she was single he nicknamed her “Homeplate” because “everyone scores.”
The lawsuit alleged she was denied assignments to firehouses because she was told “there were not enough bathrooms in the stations to accommodate another female firefighters.”
She also alleged that when she tried to take an engineers exam and told the department she was pregnant, the exam was delayed for months until she was in her third trimester. Then, the suit says, requirements for the exam were changed to require her to climb a ladder. Even after passing the exam, she alleged, she was not promoted for another year.
Mason also alleged she was subjected to physical abuse, forced to hug one of her bosses and threatened by another with a knife.
Mason was on leave from the department while her suit was pending and “voluntarily resigned” effective Nov. 26 “as a mandatory condition of this agreement,” according to the settlement documents.
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