DEPUTY'S WIFE SETTLES DISCRIMINATION SUIT : SUBSTATION DUTIES FELL TO WIVES.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

In a confidential settlement, Los Angeles County has paid nearly $1.1 million to the wife of a sheriff's deputy whose plum assignment to a tiny substation at the top of the Grapevine required her to work without pay.

In exchange for the out-of-court settlement, Caryn Suhr agreed to drop her $5 million sex discrimination lawsuit claiming that as a condition of her husband's job, she was required to perform chores ranging from janitorial work to searching female suspects.

Sheriff Sherman Block and County Counsel De Witt Clinton did not return repeated phone calls last week. And, afraid of jeopardizing the settlement, neither Suhr nor her lawyer, Bill Heine, would discuss the terms or disclose what the couple will do with the money.

Suhr did, however, recount her 2-1/2 years at the two-man Gorman post - years of unpaid work under a longstanding system that prompted a national women's magazine to name the Sheriff's Department to its ``Hall of Shame.''

``Our primary duty was to answer the phones, deal with the public, dispatch calls to my husband in the field,'' Suhr said of the wives who have lived for years at the Gorman station.

``I searched female suspects. Once there was an attempted rape victim - I had to stay with her. They expected us to maintain the facility - there was no janitor. I was the janitor. One time they found a woman wandering on the freeway; she was incoherent. I had to sit with the woman for six hours.''

The 41-year-old mother of three said she and her husband agreed to move to the tiny truck stop town with the understanding that the Sheriff's Department was working on a payment system for the spouses of the two resident deputies. The couple repeatedly pursued the issue, but were brushed off, Suhr said.

``But I knew my rights,'' said Suhr, who now lives with her family in Palmdale, where Deputy Mark Suhr is now stationed. ``I was well informed. I saw the injustice of what was going on.''

The Suhrs filed suit in November 1993 in federal court, claiming sex discrimination, and charging that the Sheriff's Department engaged in a retaliatory campaign against Suhr for supporting his wife's claims.

In February 1995, the department ended the resident deputy policy in Gorman.

Then, in July 1995, a federal court jury awarded Mark Suhr $650,000, finding that the Sheriff's Department did indeed retaliate against him for supporting his wife's claims.

But the judge dismissed Caryn Suhr's portion of the case, saying she had volunteered to work with her husband and understood her duties. Resident deputies lived rent free in two small houses behind the station.

Heine argued, however, that the free rent was a benefit awarded the deputy, not his wife who was not a department employee.

``If you reverse the circumstances and ask, would the Sheriff's Department ever have expected that the husbands of female deputies perform these tasks without compensation, you can see how the practice was plainly discriminatory on the basis of gender,'' Heine said.

The couple appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco on Caryn Suhr's claims as well as various labor law violations alleged by Mark Suhr.

Included in the appeal were charges of First Amendment violations stemming from the retaliation the couple said they suffered after Caryn Suhr complained in a letter to Block.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Department filed a counter appeal against Mark Suhr's victory in court on his retaliation claim.

The settlement was awarded in July in an agreement engineered by the County Counsel's Office that included the condition it remain confidential.

The secrecy of the settlement and preceding negotiations angered the county Board of Supervisors, which demanded Tuesday that Clinton report back to them on the terms of the suit.

Sheriff's Lt. Tom Laing, who was not involved with the case but was briefed on the outcome, said the county did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle the case.

``Due to the fact the case was on appeal, we had no idea how long it could go in the courts, an assessment was done and it was decided it would be in best interests of the Sheriff's Department, the county, the taxpayers as well as the plaintiffs to bring this matter to some resolutions,'' Laing said. ``We compromise and reached a settlement. We and all parties were satisfied with the settlement.''

Sheriff's officials said the decision to abandon the requirement that deputies' wives help operate the substation was unrelated to the Suhrs' actions.

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Photo

Photo: (color) Caryn Suhr

Sued Sheriff's Department