Congratulations to Jay Brome.
Last year, we shared with you the story of Jay Brome. Brome sued the California Highway Patrol after he dealt with more than 20 years of discrimination and harassment. In those years, he dealt with transgressions against him such as finding hangers molded into the shape of penises on his locker, hearing homophobic slurs constantly, and having his name carved out of an award plaque.
That’s not all. In addition, Brome found that other officers would never respond to calls for backup. Brome also shares that during his time at the highway patrol academy, a fellow cadet held a gun against his head and said, “I know you are gay. Tell me you are gay and I will pull the trigger.”
When Brome went to report these incidents, he says the higher-ups did nothing about the situation.
“They refuse to acknowledge there’s a problem and they refuse to do anything about it,” Brome told USA Today at the time.
Now, a year later, Jay Brome is finally seeing justice.
According to the RBGG team of Gay Grunfeld, Ben Bien-Kahn, and Lisa Ells, the California Court of Appeal ruled on behalf of Jay Brome, reversing the lower court’s dismissal of his case and sending the matter back to Solano Superior Court for trial. Brome’s case was dismissed in 2018 on the grounds that it was filed beyond the one-year statute of limitations, but Brome and his team didn’t take the rejection as the end.
In the court’s opinion, we see that the court believes there was evidence of discrimination placed against Brome during his years on the force. As RBGG wrote:
“In a unanimous, certified for publication decision by Justice Burns, the court held that there were triable issues of fact on each element of the question whether the filing of a workers compensation claim equitably tolled the Fair Employment & Housing Act (‘FEHA’) statute of limitations. The court also applied the continuing violations doctrine to allow Brome to assert his claims and held that he could alternatively prevail under a constructive discharge theory because a ‘reasonable finder of fact” could find the California Highway Patrol “knowingly permitted the intolerable conditions’ to continue and ‘should have known that a reasonable employee in Brome’s position would resign.’”
Again, the case is now being sent back to Solano Superior Court for trial.
So glad to see the name of the officer / Captain who was a souse of the harassment
who is in San Francisco
Steve Ramos