A judge ruled today that a former Baldwin Park police chief can move forward with her lawsuit alleging she was fired because of her gender.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Stern ruled there were enough details in Lili Hadsell’s lawsuit to allow her to continue for now with her allegations of gender discrimination, gender harassment and retaliation.
Stern also said there were significant changes in the current complaint, which Hadsell’s lawyers have amended four times since it first filed in June 2014. The city’s attorneys had asked Stern to dismiss the case, saying the plaintiff had already had enough chances and failed to improve upon it.
The judge disagreed.
“They changed the facts significantly,” Stern said. “I think it’s adequately (written).”
Hadsell was hired by the city in 1999 and appointed police chief in 2008. After being named to the job, she claims she became the victim of tokenism and was “paraded around as a prop to celebrate themselves for having a female police chief.”
However, Hadsell was undermined before her subordinates when City Councilman Ricardo Pacheco told them a woman could not handle the chief’s job, the suit alleges.
She alleges Pacheco was also behind blog posts such as one that stated, “I believe the only police work Hadsell did was on her knees to get promoted through the ranks.”
Hadsell was fired on Dec. 10, 2013, and replaced with a male, Michael Taylor, according to the suit. The complaint alleges Pacheco and Taylor “worked in concert to harass and discredit” Hadsell while she was chief.
