UCI student/employee in neuroscience lab claims sexual harassment by professor. $8.6M. Orange County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  From April 2018 through November 6, 2019, plaintiff worked part time in the neuroscience lab of defendant Dr. John Guzowski at the UC Irvine campus. Dr. Guzowski was her direct supervisor and plaintiff was the sole employee in the lab during that time period.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  Plaintiff started work in defendant's lab as a student. She needed lab experience and a letter of recommendation from defendant in order to pursue her goals of obtaining a Ph.D. in neuroscience or employment in a neuroscience-related field. Defendant agreed to mentor plaintiff, provide lab experience, write a letter of recommendation, introduce her to influential faculty and even “flag” her application to graduate school at UCI.

  In November 2018, defendant disclosed to plaintiff that he was having marital problems, had lost his “connection” to his wife, and no longer wanted to be married. At the same time, he began leveraging his position as plaintiff’s supervisor to pursue a highly personal, intimate and romantic “connection” with plaintiff through text messages nearly every day and at all hours of the night (amounting to over 1,000 pages), demands for answers to highly intrusive questions about her personal and dating life, and demands to spend time together talking, going on walks (including during work hours), and watching movies. When plaintiff resisted, defendant engaged in psychological abuse and coercion by repeatedly asking plaintiff to spend personal time together (despite her not answering or sending other refusal messages), getting angry, making demeaning and abusive comments, demanding an explanation if she refused, refusing to take no for an answer, and threatening her continued access to workplace benefits unless she submitted to his harassing conduct.

  Defendant became upset at plaintiff for not making sufficient eye contact with him before leaving the lab, for not providing “soothing words” when he had a bad day and for not making it clear that she “cared” for him. His conduct ultimately drove plaintiff to become suicidal and seek medical intervention. Defendant also sent text messages with romantic connotations, including compliments about her physical appearance, a good night message with a “kissy face” emoji, heart emojis, and messages that “I care for you” and friends “express their love” in times of trouble. Defendant also sent unsolicited pictures of himself to plaintiff.

  Further, that Defendant made a proposal to plaintiff (during lab hours) that they have multiple levels to their relationship, including (1) mentor / mentee, (2) friends, and (3) “more than friends,” which he acknowledged included a romantic relationship. Defendant had electronic notes of this meeting on his iPhone but never provided them to the Investigator and ultimately “lost” them.

  Plaintiff rejected the proposal and insisted that they be “1 or nothing,” meaning a strictly professional “mentor / mentee” work relationship. Defendant refused to accept her answer and again resorted to psychological abuse, coercion and threats to her existing workplace benefits and future professional development unless she submitted to the conduct. To get around plaintiff’s rejection to be “more than friends,” defendant now referred to the relationship as a “special friendship” or special “connection” that plaintiff must have with him in order for him to be an effective mentor, for him to provide supervision or training in the lab, or for him to write a letter of recommendation. Plaintiff resisted, knowing this was a pretext for pursuing a romantic relationship under a different name and insisted on having professional boundaries. Defendant refused to accept her boundaries. He also used intimidation tactics of monitoring her on Instagram (she blocked him), showing up at her second place of work on multiple occasions and behaving in such a manner that her co-workers thought he was a stalker.

  Plaintiff contended that Defendant's relentless pursuit of a personal, intimate and romantic relationship with plaintiff ultimately forced her to resign and report defendant to the UCI OEOD. After being accused of harassment, defendant retaliated against plaintiff by spreading false statements to his UCI colleagues (and third parties) that she had violated UCI policies by “deleting lab files,” was “erratic,” had anger issues, and had numerous psychological disorders including Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Split Personality Disorder. Defendant also refused to write plaintiff a letter of recommendation.  She also contended that her forced resignation resulted in the loss of a first authorship position on a research paper.

  When plaintiff complained to the OEOD, they took no action to keep her employed or in a protected status pending the outcome of the investigation. The OEOD also failed to respond to her numerous requests for a lab transfer. The OEOD also provided defendant with the contact information of a personal representative that would assist him during the investigation – no such person was provided to plaintiff.

  Plaintiff contended that the OEOD’s investigation was highly deficient, cursory and not timely as it took 10 months to complete. The OEOD report did not reference key text messages and emails. The investigator interviewed only those people identified by defendant and then asked questions designed to elicit information about his character, which was contrary to UCI policy. The investigator also improperly relied upon defendant’s unsubstantiated opinions about plaintiff’s mental health from a UCI professor who was also defendant’s personal therapist – essentially this professor took information she obtained from defendant and opined to the investigator that plaintiff had mental health disorders, without ever having met plaintiff or obtained information from a neutral party. The OEOD investigator had not actually read all of the text messages or emails before interviewing plaintiff and never had a second follow-up meeting with her. Instead, the OEOD investigator relied heavily on defendant’s extensive written annotations to the text messages, rather than asking defendant questions about the actual words used in the text messages.

  After the investigation was completed, defendant sent a text message to a member of the UCI neuroscience graduate school admissions committee, asking if plaintiff had applied to graduate school and reminding him that plaintiff had “borderline personality disorder” and engaged in highly destructive and erratic behavior. Plaintiff’s subsequent application to the neuroscience graduate school was rejected.

  Plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress from defendant’s harassment and retaliation, including the humiliation from his false claims of mental disorders and violation of lab policies. She also suffered emotional distress from the institutional betrayal realized from UCI’s failed investigation and the loss of her dream to become a neuroscientist.

  Prior to trial, it was discovered that a second female lab worker lodged a harassment and stalking allegation with the UCI OEOD against Dr. Guzowski. Plaintiff contends Dr. Guzowski engaged in nearly identical conduct and tactics towards this second lab worker, including making promises of professional support and mentorship and then threatening withdrawal of those benefits when the individual insisted on a strictly professional “mentor / mentee” relationship. Defendant also used nearly identical language of maintaining a “special friendship” or “connection” with this individual as a pretext to hide his romantic interest, just like he did with plaintiff.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  That the parties’ relationship was, at all times, a mutual and consensual platonic relationship. Plaintiff told Dr. Guzowski about her problems with her family and her previous mental health problems, including anxiety and depression, which led to plaintiff earning Ds and Fs in college. 

  Further, that at the end of 2018 and in 2019, plaintiff and Dr. Guzowski were both battling depression and were supporting each other. Dr. Guzowski tried to help plaintiff because he was concerned for her mental health and because plaintiff told him that she had nobody else to speak with.

  Defendant Dr. Guzowski did not have a romantic interest in plaintiff but, at one point, spoke with plaintiff to ensure she understood their relationship was platonic and nothing else. Plaintiff reacted poorly when Dr. Guzowski told her their friendship could only be platonic. The parties never discussed sex, their sex lives or dating each other.

  Both parties overshared personal details and both occasionally exhibited poor boundaries. Plaintiff screamed at Dr. Guzowski and swore at him after she learned that Dr. Guzowski’s marriage had improved. Dr. Guzowski continued to mentor plaintiff and introduce her to other professionals to assist her with her graduate school application.

  Further, that Plaintiff told her friend that she intended to “screw over ” Dr. Guzowski and asked her friend for advice about how to bait him. Plaintiff admitted to her friend that Dr. Guzowski did not want anything sexual from her and admitted to the friend that she was not  being sexually harassed.  Plaintiff sought retribution against him because it was Dr. Guzowski, not plaintiff, who wanted to have boundaries in the relationship in order to preserve their friendship, which upset plaintiff.

  Shortly before voluntarily resigning from her part-time position in Dr. Guzowski’s lab, plaintiff deliberately destroyed lab data to get even with Dr. Guzowski and filed an internal complaint with the University against him. Plaintiff did not disclose that she deliberately deleted lab data to the University’s investigator. Plaintiff rebuffed any efforts from Dr. Guzowski to provide her with a letter of recommendation.  Plaintiff applied to graduate school in 2022, three years after leaving Dr. Guzowski’s lab. She only applied to top tier graduate programs and was not accepted due to her poor grades. Her graduate school applications were not evaluated by anyone with knowledge of plaintiff’s complaint against defendants.

  Defendant UC Regents’ contended that its investigator conducted a thorough investigation that took several months during the COVID pandemic. The investigator interviewed 14 witnesses and reviewed all texts and emails between plaintiff and Dr. Guzowski. There was nothing of a sexual nature in their correspondence.

  Defendant UC Regents also noted that the interactions between the plaintiff and Dr. Guzowski occurred outside of normal work hours and that plaintiff unreasonably failed to report Dr. Guzowski’s conduct sooner. Plaintiff also failed to attempt to mitigate any damage because she declined to seek work in a field where she could use her Bachelor of Science degree, working for a coffee shop instead.

  Deft UC further contended that there were no similarities between plaintiff and the second female lab worker because the relationship between plaintiff and Dr. Guzowski was platonic, whereas the second lab worker approached Dr. Guzowski with romantic intentions and the two contemplated a romantic relationship.