Behavior Reprehensible; Comedy Appreciated

Bob Filner, then a Democratic representative in California, addresses the California Democratic Convention in San Diego, Saturday, April 28, 2007.
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Bob Filner has a new argument: Wait, I wasn’t allowed to do that stuff?

In his battle to avoid paying attorney’s fees and damages (as opposed to his separate battle to stay in office) embattled Mayor Bob Filner has opened a comical new front. I told you a couple days ago that Filner had demanded that the City of San Diego pay his legal fees to defend against the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by his former Communications Director Irene McCormack.

But the argument then was that as a public employee, the City had to cover the costs of defending him from things he did in the course of his job duties. The City Council said in response, no fondling your employees is not one of your job duties. Pay your own bills.

But now Filner and his lawyer are pursuing a new and additional line of argument – namely, that the City is partly responsible for the alleged harassment because the City did not provide Filner with adequate sexual harassment awareness training.

“The city has a legal obligation to provide sexual harassment training to all management level employees, and to provide such training to new managers within six (6) months of hire,” writes Filner lawyer Harvey Berger, “The city failed to provide such training to Mayor Filner.”

Here’s the full passage from the letter covering this argument …

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Click here to see the entire letter.

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