San Diego will pay $425K to partial paraplegic city engineer in disability, ethnic discrimination case

San Diego has agreed to pay $425,000 to a former city engineer for disability discrimination, ethnic discrimination and a failure to accommodate the man's workplace needs after a skiing injury left him a partial paraplegic.

The payout comes eight years after a jury awarded a former city inspector $522,000 for similar claims of discrimination that involved at least one of the same city supervisors.

City Attorney Mara Elliott said this week that she is working with the city's Human Resources Department to ensure its policies comply with California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, including additional staff training.

Michael Conger, an attorney representing the fired city engineer, said Monday that he believes San Diego still faces challenges, contending city officials let the discrimination against his client happen even though they knew it was illegal.

Conger's client, Matthew Papuga, worked as a structural engineer for San Diego for more than 28 years, until he was fired in 2017 after a city drug test detected a form of valium in his system. Papuga was prescribed the drug for his recovery from spinal surgeries.

The lawsuit claims city officials should have worked with Papuga to determine how he could complete his work and take required medicines. The suit notes that Papuga's doctors said the medicines didn't affect his ability to do his job.

The suit also alleges that a supervisor of Persian descent discriminated against Papuga, whom the suit describes as American. The supervisor "desired to hire and retain as many employees of Persian ancestry as possible," the suit says.

"This is a 28-year worker let go by a woman who was really his nemesis," Conger said Monday.

After suffering the ski injury, Papuga could have chosen to go on disability and collect government checks, Conger said. But he chose instead to finish out his career with dignity, including plans to retire in late 2018, Conger said.

Papuga took a leave of absence for some back surgeries, including spinal fusions. After he returned to work, a supervisor suggested he was not "ok" and requested the drug test that detected the valium.

The City Council is scheduled Tuesday to approve the settlement with Papuga. The council previously approved the payout in a session closed to the public on Oct. 6.

Superior Court Judge Kenneth Medel has scheduled a civil jury trial in the case for April.

In 2012, a civil jury awarded $522,000 to city mechanical inspector David Flores, who suffered injuries in a 2006 car crash that left him unable to climb ladders in certain circumstances.

Flores requested that his supervisors determine ways for him to continue conducting his work despite the need for an accommodation on ladder climbing, but city officials instead fired him in 2010.

Instead of settling with Flores, attorneys for San Diego let the case go to trial, where a jury found that the city had discriminated against Flores. The case was handled by Superior Court Judge John Meyer.

The new payout comes in the wake of a city audit last spring that found San Diego could significantly reduce the nearly $25 million a year it spends on lawsuit payouts if it invests in better employee training and deeper analyses of risks.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

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