Ex-Waitress at Vanderpump's Restaurant Wins $100K

Originally posted at 1:17 p.m. June 17, 2014. Edited with new details.

A former server at a Beverly Hills restaurant owned by "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Lisa Vanderpump and her husband was awarded $100,000 in punitive damages today in her sexual harassment suit against the eatery.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated for less than an hour before reaching its verdict against the Villa Blanca restaurant. The plaintiff, Karina Bustillos, was awarded $6,250 in compensatory damages by the same panel last week.

Bustillos, who fought back tears outside the courtroom, said suing and going to trial was worth the ordeal.

"I'm relieved," Bustillos said. "It's important to stand up for your rights."

In her closing argument in the second phase of the trial, plaintiff's lawyer Genie Harrison said a punitive damage award would help prevent other Villa Blanca employees from experiencing the same type of treatment her client endured.

"What you're doing is protecting all of them on a going-forward basis," Harrison told the jury. "You are the ones to teach Villa Blanca that you can't do this."

Villa Blanca attorney Marieanne Zakarian countered that what happened with Bustillos was an "isolated incident" and urged that no additional money be awarded to the plaintiff.

"The Villa Blanca is not a Fortune 500 company," Zakarian said. "It's a family-owned restaurant with 60 to 80 employees."

Zakarian said there was no concrete evidence supporting Bustillos' attorneys' allegations that Vanderpump's husband, Ken Todd, ordered restaurant surveillance footage destroyed to keep it from being obtained by the media. Bustillos' lawyers maintain the video could have bolstered their client's claims.

Although the jury found during the first phase of trial that the Villa Blanca was liable to Bustillos and that it acted with malice, the panel exonerated the restaurant's assistant manager, Michael Govia.

Bustillos maintained Govia caused pain in her wrists when he took hold and twisted them after she asked for change for a $20 bill so she could distribute tips at the end of her shift on Aug. 13, 2012. Four months earlier, Govia tried to kiss her, the plaintiff alleged

Bustillos filed her case in October 2012, naming Govia, the restaurant, Vanderpump and Todd. Vanderpump, who testified briefly last week, sat with her husband in court as they listened to the testimony and final arguments.

Bustillos worked at Villa Blanca in Beverly Hills for about 14 months until September 2012, when she maintained she quit because she could not take the stress of remaining there any longer. She alleged the eatery violated its own policies against sexual harassment by not doing anything to punish Govia for his alleged misconduct.

In testimony today, Michael Velazquez, the eatery's CPA, told jurors the restaurant had $1.4 million in assets in 2012. Todd, the only other witness today, said profits at the restaurant went down after news accounts of the Bustillos lawsuit.

Harrison told jurors they had a chance to "impose actual consequences" by ordering Villa Blanca to pay punitive damages.

"This phase is literally about making it sting," she said. "It has to hurt or else it's not going to be taken seriously."

Zakarian said the restaurant treated Bustillos fairly after she complained.

"If anything, the Villa Blanca went out of its way to accommodate her," Zakarian said.

Bustillos has held several server jobs since she left Villa Blanca and "is not financially weak," Zakarian said.

--City News Service