Former CHP officer who sued over anti-gay harassment wins $2.2 million settlement

Five years after a former California Highway Patrol officer sued the agency alleging he was driven out of his job because he was gay, the CHP has settled the lawsuit for $2.2 million.

Jay Brome, who spent 20 years with the CHP until he took medical stress leave in January 2015, agreed to the settlement after a lengthy, contentious legal fight that went through three courts and was set for trial when the agency agreed to settle.

Brome, who now runs the Pocket Monkey Vintage clothing store in Benicia, said the settlement of his long-running case was “a huge relief.”

“I feel that I won justice,” Brome said. “And justice is not the outcome, it’s the process.

“They deposed me on four different days and I was able to articulate everything that happened to me.”

One of Brome’s attorneys said the settlement came after lengthy preparations for trial.

“I am so happy for Jay Brome,” Gay Grunfeld said. “He is one of the most resilient, hard-working, dedicated people I’ve ever had the opportunity to represent.

“He never gave up on this case. He sat through all these depositions where people said negative things about him. They couldn’t do anything about his performance, which was superb, so some of the lieutenants and sergeants we deposed would try to say he was too reserved or other personal attacks.”

The CHP declined comment on the settlement.

Brome spent two years trying to get into the CHP Academy, and said in a 2019 interview with The Sacramento Bee that he faced discrimination and bullying almost immediately after beginning his training.

He was subjected to cadets calling him “fag” or “gay,” and said one instructor told him “to take my skirt off and start acting like a man.”

Brome said the abuse followed him through a series of assignments, starting at the San Francisco area office and continuing through his last post at the agency’s Solano office, where he said his fellow officers sometimes refused to provide backup for him while he was on patrol.

When he was named officer of the year in 2013, an honor that comes with a photo being placed on the briefing room wall, his photo never was added to the display.

The abuse allegations, which were echoed by declarations from other CHP officers, became so intense that Brome said he considered suicide and took medical leave.

The CHP immediately took away his service weapon and suspended his police officer powers but did not conduct any investigation, Grunfeld said.

“They did not investigate the fact that he said at the time he had been harassed his entire career and had been subjected to a hostile work environment,” Grunfeld said.

Brome’s case followed a tortuous legal path, with him filing a complaint with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing and a lawsuit in September 2016 in Solano Superior Court using a different attorney.

That lawsuit was dismissed in 2018 by a judge who ruled it was filed past the statute of limitations. But Grunfeld and co-counsel Lisa Ells had the case by then and appealed to the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, which unanimously reversed the decision.

The case was headed for trial with Grunfeld, Ells and attorneys Priyah Kaul and Benjamin Bien-Kahn when the CHP agreed to settle in July and paid Brome the $2.2 million last week.

During discovery proceedings in the lawsuit, Brome’s legal team found that the CHP’s promotion process did not take into account whether officers had faced discrimination complaints, Grunfeld’s law firm said in a statement.

One of the officers Brome accused of harassment, Steve Ramos, was promoted three times after Brome complained about him and is now an assistant chief, Grunfeld said.

Another former patrolman who sued claiming discrimination, Ken Stanley, was scheduled to be a witness in Brome’s trial, Grunfeld said.

Stanley is straight, but told The Bee in 2019 that other officers who took a dislike to him portrayed him as gay by posting photos in a sergeant’s office, including one with his face pasted over a nude photo of Demi Moore that appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair when she was pregnant.

“They’re the equivalent of the Catholic church, where they deny everything,” said Stanley, whose lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

During the legal fight, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and five other groups filed a brief detailing “the history of homophobia in law enforcement and ongoing effect homophobia has on law-enforcement agencies throughout California and across the country.”

Grunfeld said she still is waiting for the CHP to turn over emails sought through public records act requests, but added that the agency indicated it had found 83,000 hits for emails containing phrases like “gay pride,” “homophobia,” “Demi Moore” and others.

“The Public Records Act requests for emails containing the words ‘fag’ or ‘faggot’ are still pending,” her law firm’s statement said.

Grunfeld said she considers it “shocking” that the CHP still does not have an ombudsman or support group aimed to helping officers in the LGBTQ community, saying that “illustrates the lack of accountability in the organization.”

And she said she hopes the amount of the settlement will lead to reforms in the agency.

“He loved the CHP,” Grunfeld said. “It was his dream, and he did everything he could do to make it better.

“He was loyal and he worked hard and he got excellent reviews while working there. We’re very pleased that Jay Brome can move on with the rest of his life, and I feel the $2.2 million sends a signal to the CHP that it needs to improve its investigations of employment discrimination allegations to hold more people accountable.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 12:44 PM.