Appeals court reverses $10 million sexual harassment verdict against LA community college district

LOS ANGELES (CN) — An L.A. County community college professor who won a $10 million sexual harassment suit against her district and an administrator will have to return to court after the California Court of Appeal ruled on Monday that the trial court judge made bad evidentiary findings and inappropriate comments.  

In 2018, Sabrena Odom, an English professor at Southwest College and director of its Student Success Center, sued the Los Angeles County Community College District for failing to investigate and prevent sexual harassment and retaliation by the vice president of student services at the time, Howard Irvin. 

After less than a day of deliberations, a jury sided with Odom. 

The community college district then asked the judge to either reduce the $10 million judgment to $150,000 in past noneconomic damages and $100,000 in future noneconomic damages, with no damages awarded against Irvin, or to take the case back to trial. 

At trial, the district didn’t challenge that the verdict wasn’t supported by the evidence. Instead, they argued that the jury was presented irrelevant and prejudicial evidence that should have never been admitted.   

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