LOS ANGELES – A former Long Beach Community College District executive who alleged she was forced to quit in 2022 because of a bad work environment has reached a tentative settlement with her ex-employer.
Plaintiff Leah Goold-Haws said she was hired by the district as regional director of global trade for Los Angeles County in 2016. She maintained she resigned in 2022 because of a poor job atmosphere that included religious discrimination involving the coronavirus vaccination and her conflicts with the small business development center regional director.
On Wednesday, Goold-Haws’ attorneys filed court papers with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Crowley notifying him of a “conditional” settlement in the case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by Dec. 4. No terms were divulged.
Goold-Haws, now 56, was hired in 2016 and was promoted two years later to a second grant-funded position, state director for the California International Trade Center. In 2021, she was transferred yet again to another grant-funded district position under the Los Angeles County Small Business Development Center Network, where the regional director began to isolate her and treat her as a subordinate rather than a peer, the suit alleged.
Goold-Haws, a Mormon, was granted a religious exemption to the district’s mandatory coronavirus vaccination rule, but she was directed to comply with stiff alternative safety measures, including social distancing, wearing a mask indoors and outdoors, staying alone in her office and taking weekly coronavirus tests, the suit states.
Goold-Haws went on an extended leave because of her stress and resigned in August 2022 after being told she would be put on additional leave upon her return date a month later, the suit stated.
In October 2022, the LBCCD demanded that Goold-Haws repay $12,000 to the district because she held a consulting job while on leave, according to her suit.
