A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday sided with the city in a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit brought by City Controller auditor Soledad Gomez, who claimed she was passed over for permanent investigator posts after reporting suspected wrongdoing during a 2019 temporary assignment. The verdict closes out Gomez’s bid to convince jurors that her disclosure played a role in the hiring decisions she challenged.
Jury backs City Hall over retaliation claim
Attorneys for the city argued in court papers that Gomez was simply performing routine investigative work and that the Controller’s Office, the Ethics Commission and the City Attorney’s Office had legitimate, nonretaliatory reasons for choosing other candidates, according to MyNewsLA. As reported by the outlet, jurors ultimately decided that Gomez’s disclosure of what she believed was unlawful activity was not a contributing factor in the decision not to hire her for a permanent civil-service post.
Audit fights, DWP contracts and an FBI raid
Gomez’s lawsuit was filed alongside related claims from another Controller’s Office auditor who alleged supervisors discouraged close scrutiny of certain Department of Water and Power contracts. In July 2019, the FBI executed search warrants at the DWP and City Hall East in a probe tied to the utility’s troubled billing-system rollout, background previously reported by the Los Angeles Times.
How Gomez’s case survived, then stalled
Gomez’s single retaliation claim stayed alive after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dean J. Kitchens denied the city’s motion to toss the case in March, according to MyNewsLA. The outlet also reported that her co-plaintiff, Beth Kennedy, reached a tentative settlement earlier this year. By the time Gomez’s claim reached trial, jurors concluded there was not enough evidence to find that her protected disclosure contributed to the hiring decisions she challenged.
What the verdict says about whistleblower protections
The ruling narrows one route for auditors who say they are punished for speaking up, even as it leaves larger questions hanging over how DWP contracting and oversight battles are handled inside City Hall. Under California’s whistleblower statute, employees are generally protected when they report violations of law, and once an employee shows that protected activity was a contributing factor, the employer must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the same decision would have been made for legitimate reasons, per Labor Code Section 1102.5.
City posture and lingering tensions
The Controller’s Office has previously described its audit work as “consistently thorough, professional,” the Los Angeles Times reported. With the jury’s decision, Gomez’s claim is formally resolved in the city’s favor, even as the case highlights ongoing friction between front-line auditors and the powerful departments they are tasked with reviewing.
