A former San Francisco district attorney who lost his job for sending a “reply all” email to his boss asking, “What color are your pants?” claims in a new lawsuit against the city that the embarrassing message was sent in error.
Jovan Thomas, 56, filed the complaint on Friday. When San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and her staff opened their inboxes, they found a risqué response from a trained victim advocate to an email sent to staff by the city’s top prosecutor. The Mercury News reported..
Jenkins’ office condemned the email as “misogynistic” and Thomas, who had previously been accused of sexual harassment, was fired after an internal investigation.
In documents filed in Superior Court, Thomas claimed the email was intended for a longtime friend whose father had recently passed away, and the former employee said it was merely a “silly, playful” joke meant to cheer up the man’s friend.
“[The] “The text messages sent to the friend were whimsical questions that were part of a repertoire of jokes that Plaintiff often uses with her friends,” Thomas’ lawyers wrote in the complaint.
“In the context of their long-standing friendship, Plaintiff’s sarcastic questions had no sexual, vulgar, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning or intent,” they added.
“Rather, they were just goofy, incoherent remarks made by one long-time friend to another in an attempt to cheer him up and ease his mind during a difficult and upsetting experience.”
Thomas ultimately plans to sue the city for invasion of privacy, defamation and infliction of severe emotional distress.
He is seeking a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages as a result of his firing.
In the aftermath of Thomas’ firing, it was revealed that a woman named Jane Doe had filed a lawsuit against Thomas in 2018, alleging that she was sexually harassed while working on a case involving her and her son.
The woman alleged that Thomas fondled her buttocks and made sexual advances on her, but Jane Doe complied because she feared she would lose out on victim services if she refused.The San Francisco Standard reported.
The victim agreed to remove Thomas from the lawsuit against the city in 2019, and city representatives filed a motion in 2021 to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing Thomas’ actions were “outside the course and scope of his duties.”
The judge agreed and dismissed the case in December of that year.
