Vallejo settles former fire captain's gender discrimination lawsuit for $5M following jury verdict

VALLEJO – The city of Vallejo agreed to pay $5 million to settle a former fire captain’s lawsuit alleging that she faced retaliation in response to her complaints about gender discrimination at the department. 

A jury found the city of Vallejo liable for claims brought by former Vallejo fire Capt. Melisse Leitzke on July 31. After the verdict, the city agreed to settle Leitzke’s lawsuit before proceeding to the damages phase of the case. 

"This verdict confirms what Melisse has known for years, that the city of Vallejo retaliated against her for speaking out about gender discrimination," Leitske’s attorney Shelley Molineaux said. "We hope this result encourages other public employers to take complaints of discrimination seriously the first time they are raised and to take their obligation to prevent retaliation once an employee makes such a complaint seriously."

Leitzke sued the city in 2023 after she was placed on administrative leave and demoted for spraying a reporter with a firehose. 

According to the lawsuit, a video showed that the reporter had moved too close to the fire and was in a position where he could easily be splashed with water. The initial investigation found that Leitzke had not intentionally sprayed the reporter.

However, the city continued to investigate the incident and extended Leitzke’s administrative leave. Despite a Skelly officer’s findings that the proposed discipline was unwarranted, then-fire Chief Kyle Long demoted Leitzke, claiming that she had endangered the public, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleged that the extended administrative leave and the demotion were the culmination of over two decades of retaliatory incidents that Leitzky endured after she complained about sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the department.

According to the lawsuit, Leiitzke complained about several incidents of sexual harassment early in her tenure with the Vallejo Fire Department. She alleged that after the complaints, male colleagues attempted to prevent her from doing her job by refusing to communicate or work with her and supervisors excluded her from advancement opportunities and training.

The lawsuit detailed a number of incidents in which department leaders allegedly held female firefighters to higher standards than their male colleagues.

According to the lawsuit, Leitzke and another female firefighter were required to complete an apprenticeship program that none of the male firefighters completed. Leitzke alleged that supervisors scrutinized her timecard while male colleagues were not disciplined for overtime violations. 

Leitzke also alleged that serious safety violations and misconduct by male firefighters went unchecked. While Leitzke was passed over for a promotion, department leaders promoted a male firefighter to a position as driver of a fire engine after he had been convicted for DUI.

Another firefighter who was found passed out drunk in a McDonald's parking lot while on duty was never disciplined, according to the lawsuit.

Despite the obstacles, Leitzke did receive a promotion to engineer and then later to captain. But, according to the lawsuit, her supervisors did not celebrate the accomplishments as they did with her male colleagues. 

According to a statement from Leitzke’s attorneys, she was one of only three female fire captains in the history of the Vallejo Fire Department.  

“Captain Leitzke had hoped to become the first Vallejo Fire Department female battalion chief,” the statement noted. “However, Vallejo derailed Captain Leitzke's career when it retaliated against her after she complained that the Fire Chief discriminated against her because of her gender.”