Lawsuit accusing H.B. city attorney of discrimination is refiled in county court after federal judge signaled he would toss it

A week after a federal judge warned he was prepared to toss out a lawsuit accusing Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates of age and disability discrimination, the lawyer for a current and a former city employee refiled the complaint in Orange County Superior Court.

The pair’s attorney, Bernard Alexander, had until Thursday this week to file an amended complaint before U.S. District Judge David Carter, who said he would dismiss the suit for “lack of subject matter jurisdiction” unless it was amended with more details to keep the case in federal court.

Rather than amend the complaint, Alexander refiled the case in Superior Court on May 21. The complaint, nearly identical to the initial lawsuit filed in January, was assigned to Judge Nathan Scott.

The case does not include an earlier claim of violation of free-speech protections that Carter said the plaintiffs had not demonstrated. It does still include a disability discrimination argument that Carter dismissed.

Alexander declined to comment Tuesday.

Gates referred questions to his attorney, Wayne Gross, who was not immediately available for comment.

The legal wrangling began in federal court Jan. 4 when Alexander filed the complaint on behalf of Neal Moore, 73, a former senior deputy city attorney who worked for Huntington Beach for 14 years, and Scott Field, 62, a current senior deputy city attorney who has been with the city for 24 years.

According to the lawsuit, Gates has made a “concerted effort” to push out, displace and replace older employees with younger staff members since he was first elected in 2014. The complaint alleges Gates purposely assigned excessive duties with unreasonable deadlines and unachievable tasks to point out fault and poor performance by Field and Moore.

The lawsuit states Gates “nitpicked” Moore’s work and regularly provoked arguments with him over case strategy to create a false record for discipline. In 2017, Gates hired two “younger would-be replacements” — who were about 40 and 35 at the time — to take over trial-related duties Moore had performed since he was hired in 2004.

Moore was later relegated to entry-level work and was demoted three classifications over incidents of misconduct alleged to have occurred years earlier, resulting in a 35% salary cut. He resigned in 2018, citing intolerable work conditions.

The complaint alleges Field faced similar hurdles that Gates created in an attempt to push him to resign, though he remains on staff after two demotions.

According to the lawsuit, Gates repeatedly disciplined Field with written reprimands, humiliated him in front of colleagues and reduced his workload to the equivalent of an unlicensed law clerk. Field also alleges Gates gave him verbal and written reprimands for taking protected medical leave to treat his cataracts beginning in 2016.

Gates told the Daily Pilot in January that he had talked to the two privately about their performance. He said assignments are distributed on a case-by-case basis and that all staff members are expected to work hard and produce results.

“I’ve asked all my attorneys to increase their level of professionalism and to produce better results, and for a couple of people it was a challenge and for others it wasn’t,” Gates said. “We put emphasis only on good legal performance, and when people fall below a standard, we have to correct it and deal with it.”

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.