Fired workers sue Yuba County
Harassment, defamation claimed

By Harold Kruger
Appeal-Democrat

Three fired Yuba County employees have filed a discrimination lawsuit against county Health Officer Joe Cassady and others.

Mike Noda, Beverly Craig and Carolyn Williams filed their lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. They seek unspecified damages.

Their lawsuit is the latest chapter in the long-running battle that tore apart the county Health and Human Services Department.

According to their lawsuit, Noda, Craig and Williams suffered "discipline, harassment, defamation and, ultimately, termination," even though they "performed in an exemplary fashion" for the county.

"We're optimistic that now the truth will come out about the circumstances surrounding their employment," attorney Jill Telfer said Wednesday. "At least the citizens of Yuba County will see a lot of good work these individuals did. They were nonpolitical and doing their job.

"In doing their job, they brought up concerns they had about Dr. Cassady, which was their response to do in their position. This country is founded on free speech. As a result of exercising that right and their responsibility, they were all three terminated."

In the lawsuit, they allege Cassady had "bragged about how he could do anything he wanted to because he had friends in all of the right places."

Cassady deceptively hid his "malicious harassment and discrimination through other people," the lawsuit said.

Noda was the HHS director until his firing earlier this year. Craig was the deputy director and Williams was an administrative analyst.

They were fired after they complained about Cassady, alleging he had misused his position as health officer. The state Attorney General's Office investigated Cassady earlier this year and found nothing amiss.

Cassady, who sued Craig, Noda, Williams and others two months ago in federal court, alleging there was a plot to oust him because of his evangelical Christian beliefs, declined to comment on the new litigation.

"It is our contention that Cassady is using religion to cloak his behavior, and that has nothing to do with religion at all," Telfer said.

County Counsel Dan Montgomery said the other county defendants would not comment on the lawsuit.

"We haven't seen it," he said. "We certainly can't evaluate the merits of the case at this point."

The other defendants are County Administrator Kent McClain, interim HHS Director Kathy Volf and Kathy Cole, HHS fiscal officer.

The lawsuit alleged that Williams and Craig started having problems in their county jobs in early 1999.

After Craig was hired, Cassady contacted her at home and told her that the county "had many problems with its 'black' population, especially those on Country Club Court," the lawsuit said.

Cassady "alleged that many blacks were incarcerated in jails and juvenile hall, high drug usage, unemployment, many were fatherless, on welfare ... because black men were absent fathers and refused to assume the proper role as a role model," the lawsuit said.

Craig is African-American.

The lawsuit, filed two weeks ago, alleged that Cassady and others "made racial and gender derogatory remarks to Craig and Williams, including inquiries into whether or not Craig's family was on welfare because he claimed 'most blacks around in this area were lazy, and did not work.'"

Williams, according to the lawsuit, had a "sexual reassignment" before she took the county job and was occasionally referred to as "he" by other county employees who "would come to her with fabricated stories about transvestites. ..."

Telfer said Williams was a hermaphrodite who had an operation in the early 1990s. According to the lawyer, that information "ended up being disclosed" to the county. Williams "previously had gone by a male name," she said.

Starting in March 1999, Cassady "solicited and encouraged citizens and employees of the county to lodge complaints in an effort to force Craig out of her position alleging mismanagement of the Health Division against Craig," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleged that Cole created deficits of about $80,000, "rendered incorrect fiscal information and lost at least $70,000 on another occasion." She tried to blame Craig and Williams, the lawsuit said.

In mid-2000, the lawsuit said, the county "conspired to force Craig out of her position ... under the pretext of a reorganization," but a "public outcry" scuttled the reorganization.

In October 2000, Cassady "took decrypted messages from a previous newspaper article which ran in the Indianapolis Star and tried to connect the death of a prison inmate in Indiana to Craig," the lawsuit said. "This is despite the fact that Craig had never worked in, for or around this prison."

According to Telfer, Cassady "got some information from an article and took it out of context."

Cassady then "fabricated" claims against Craig and Noda, including a claim that Noda had stripped him of his health officer role.

In May 2001, according to the lawsuit, Cassady stopped the distribution of condoms to AIDS/HIV clients because they were "against his religious beliefs."

Williams clashed with Cassady, telling him that "condom distribution was a necessary part of the AIDS/HIV program to prevent infection."