Lifeguards waited too long to sue for being filmed while undressing, CA judge says
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by female lifeguards against the city of Burbank, alleging that a former co-worker secretly filmed them while they were changing.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Draper said that the women, named as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 in the lawsuit, waited eight months too long to sue and “had no legal justification for not doing so within the appropriate time period,” NBCLA reported. Draper made his final ruling on Jan. 13.
The suit was originally filed in January 2018 by four lifeguards, who say that even though Verdugo Aquatics Facility had different changing rooms for men and women, they were required to change in a “lifeguard’s office,” according to the lawsuit.
They claim that Arturo Ponce Montano planted a hidden cell phone in the office and secretly taped them when they were “completely and/or partially undressed.” The camera lens was also positioned so that their “private body parts were recorded.”
Two of the women were minors at the time, according to the lawsuit. They also believe that he shared the recordings with other people.
Before they were allegedly secretly filmed, the women said that Burbank had already gotten complaints about Montano for “sexual name-calling and inappropriate touching” before the recordings were discovered.
