Judge Issues Mixed Ruling In BHFD Discrimination Lawsuit

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — A judge has pared a lawsuit brought against the city of Beverly Hills by a man who alleges he was wrongfully terminated at the end of his probationary firefighter training in 2022 after enduring harassment and a culture of hostility, including being subjected to excessive workouts.

In his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, plaintiff Jeffrey Forrest Ponton says a captain at the Beverly Hills Fire Department unfairly evaluated him as a "danger to himself and the members of the fire department." During a hearing Tuesday on the city's motion to dismiss four causes of action, Judge Wendy Chang eliminated Ponton claims for negligence and negligent hiring, saying his attorneys had enough chances to convince her that they should remain in the case and failed.

However, Chang denied the city's bid to dismiss Ponton's causes of action for retaliation as well as failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

In his suit brought in August 2023, Ponton alleges the BHFD has a history of subjecting probationary firefighters it dislikes to extraordinarily physically intense training.

During training, Ponton was pushed so hard that he either collapsed or could not stop his body from shaking on four separate occasions, the suit states.

Ponton, 37, says he was hired in January 2022 and that he has Klippel- Fiel syndrome, a rare congenital condition characterized by the abnormal fusion of any two of the seven bones in the neck.

"When defendants learned of plaintiff's medical condition, they perceived him as having a disability and physically unfit to work as a firefighter," according to the suit, which also states that the plaintiff's wife temporarily suffered from postpartum depression.

Ponton felt marginalized by his fellow crew members and superiors for supporting the coronavirus mask and vaccination mandates and his colleagues also asked him about other politically charged issues, such as his views on gun ownership. The plaintiff says he was terminated for pretextual reasons in August 2022.

In their court papers, attorneys for the city stated that Ponton's lawsuit had no facts showing that the city knew of his medical condition.

"While plaintiff pleads a series of interactions with his colleagues in the city's Fire Department, the complaint does not reference any facts showing that anyone at the city was aware of his alleged disability or any sort of connection between his alleged disability and the interactions alleged," the city's lawyers stated in their pleadings.

City News Service