KimOanh Nguyen-Lam vs. Westminster School District Update

Many months have passed since KimOanh Nguyen-Lam (pictured on the left holding a Viet Weekly magazine) filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Westminster School District (WSD) for firing her after just 1 week on the job.  Nguyen-Lam is currently a member of the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education.  There are strong indications that the lawsuit between Nguyen-Lam and WSD is coming close to a conclusion so I just want to refresh readers on what happened.

BACKGROUND:  In May of 2006, the WSD on a 4-1 decision considered and accepted Nguyen-Lam's application for the Superintendent post, but the Board of Trustees rescinded their decision within a week on a 3-2 vote.  The Board's decision caused an uproar in the Vietnamese-American and Hispanic communities for what appeared to be discrimination against Nguyen-Lam.  Then Trustees Judy Ahrens, Jim Reed switched their vote after it became clear to them that Nguyen-Lam did not have the required management experience to lead the district.  Sergio Contreras and Blossie Marquez stayed consistent with their original vote.  After the 2006 General Election, both Judy Ahrens and Blossie Marquez were defeated by challengers with the backing of the teachers association and Jim Reed did not file for re-election.  Nguyen-Lam's candidates: Lupe Fisher, Frank Tran, and Thanh Phan also went down in defeat.  The fired superintendent immediately filed a lawsuit against the Westmisnter School District and others who she considered to be involved in her downfall.

LAWSUIT: The lawsuit alleges an array of claims including violation of the Brown Act; breach of contract; discriminations based on race, national origin, sexual orientation, defamation, and invasion of privacy.  Nguyen-Lam also named all former and current Trustees who voted against her appointment, along with Cao Cuong, a Westminster resident and President of a local CRA chapter.  She hired Frank Barbaro and Katrina Foley as her attorneys.  Barbaro is the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County and Foley is a Costa Mesa Councilwoman.  Judy Ahrens and Cao Cuong are represented by Declues, Burkett & Thompson, LLP, a legal arm of the Education Alliance.

DEFENSE: All defendants, including the school district, Jim Reed and Jo-Ann Purcell have filed motion to strike a number of causes of action in the complaints such as violation of the Brown Act, defamation or invasion of privacy on the ground that their actions were simply in furtherance of the right of petition and to free speech under the Constitution. This motion is allowed under the statutes designed to prevent people using litigation to silence other people from speaking up on pubic issues known as Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP).  They argued that the lawsuit was simply designed to prevent them from speaking publicly about their decision or involvement in the dismissal of Nguyen-Lam.  Recently Judy Ahrens filed a motion to strike the SLAPP suit and Nguyen-Lam did not file any opposition. On May 16, the court granted the motion to strike the SLAPP suit in favor of Ahrens.  Since then Ahrens has filed a motion to recover attorney's fees in the amount of $7,550.  Should the court rule in favor of Ahrens, Nguyen-Lam will be expected to pay a lot of legal fees for all the people who she is suing.

WHAT'S NEXT: My prediction is in light of the recent victory for Judy Ahrens, Nguyen-Lam has or will offer to dismiss all claims against the Westminster School District, Jim Reed and Jo-Ann Purcell in exchange for their waiver of any potential claim against her for attorney' fees and costs or malicious proesecution.  I don't know if these defendants have responded to the offer, if there is any.

Orange County Superior Court, Case No. 07CC02899

Comments

[Patricia]

So she is admitting her dismissal was reasonable, or at least she can't prove otherwise?

[Cow]

I think she cannot prove her charges otherwise. She's not suing because the district fired her, I think according to this post, she's suing because she claimed racial discrimination and other violations of the law.

[Art Pedroza]

KimOanh ought to get revenge by running against Van Tran next year.

[Re: Art Pedroza]

Art your senseless hatred for Van Tran is really starting to get old.

[Lam Pho]

Ok, I was mistaken when I said that Van Tran was the ONLY elected Viet official I liked. I actually like Kim Oanh too. Since I like them both, it would be a difficult choice to make if they run against each other. For now, I would lean toward Kim Oanh.

[Ask Lam Pho]

Welcome to K.O. run against Van Tran in 2008.

Look the pass lesson in Primary 2006 for Long Pham: Terrible

From www.ocvote.com:
VAN TRAN (REP) 22243 87.2%
LONG KIM PHAM (REP) 3274 12.8%

Kim Oanh is very liberal, I find it distressing that self proclaimed conservatives on this blog are in fact RHINO's and support liberals.

She was not fire because of race, after all they hired her to start with; and she really wasn't "fired" at all. She had not signed a contract with them and the President of the Board, who was not re-elected had jumped the gun in announcing her "hiring" without a contract in place. It was all silly idiocy. When people in audience jumped up and yelled "racists" I wonder what they thought when she was "hired" as they like to call it. Were they "racists" then? Simple, the headhunters put her on the list of "qualified" which consisted of all minorities from what I understand. When she was selected as the "finalist" and the background check went deeper it found that two of the requirements of the job were not met by her. She embarrassed herself and our community by even trying to sue for such a thing. The headhunters were subsequently let go...or their contract was not renewed. They were the problem. Not the board, not Kim. Due diligence by some of the board members if they had been given the information before the finalist selection would have precluded all that.

[Lam Pho]

Look, I think if Kim Oanh ran against Van Tran today, Van would win easily. But it seems to me that the Tran camp is scare of her; why else would you attack her so?
Please do not insult my intelligence by comparing Kim Oanh to Long Pham. Oh Gosh, Long Pham was a joke!!! and Kim Oanh certainly did not embarrassed the Viet community. Man, where do you come up with this stuff? We are proud of her strength, charism and high educational background, the same way we're proud of Van's.
You also claim that Oanh is very liberal. I do not know whether or not this is true. Please tell me why she's very liberal to you.

[Lam Pho You are right]

Lam Pho:
You are so dam right. KO support abortion, gay and lesbian right. That why she's every popular in that group.

[Lam Pho You are right]

Lam Pho:
You are so dam right. KO support abortion, gay and lesbian right. That why she's very popular in that group.

[Reality Check]

How is anyone even considering the possibility of someone running who is currently suing a school district from inside the 68th? I don't think the voters will appreciate KO trying to suck taxpayer's money for her own benefit.

[Milk Man]

Oh it's worst than sucking taxpayers' money to line her pocket - KO is trying to steal money from children!

[Lam Pho]

One question for all you brilliant Van Tran / Trung supporters: What was the main reason why people voted for Janet over Trung? You better know the answer to this. Think about it, Janet was young, inexperienced and not all that smart; yet she beat your man. Why?? How? What were the voters thinking when they voted for Janet over Trung?

[Cow]

When we talk about the amount of raw ballots that was cast, Trung Nguyen had more votes before the recount.

During the recount, enough of his votes were disqualified, thus making Janet the victor by 3 votes. Most of the votes that were rejected during the hand recount, were in Vietnamese language.

So you see Lam Pho, who really got more votes in the Vietnamese community?

[Lam Pho]

Cow, I see your point. Believe me I wish Trung had won but what's the point in whining over it. She won, end of story. Don't cry about it like Al Gore's supporters.

But no matter what, Trung and Janet was only a few votes apart, which ever way you want to look at it. If you're a Trung staffer, wouldn't you want to know why so people voted for Janet over Trung?

IMHO people voted for Janet because they are tired of the tactics of the Van Tran camp operatives. She appears fresher, less "owned" and more honest than some of what has been going on.

Van Tran needs to do a self evaluation on his camp, it's ruining him on our streets.

[Cow]

Why are we talking about the Tran/Janet dispute here? This is about Nguyen-Lam and her lawsuit. Van Tran is not behind this lawsuit nor her dismissal.

[Lam Pho]

Cow
The question of "what if" KO ran against Tran came up. My point was that Tran could learn from the lesson of Trung vs. Janet. Trung should have won easily. In fact, many months before the election, most people I knew supported Trung. But weeks before the election, those people changed their minds and supported Janet. Not only did they support Janet, they were very vigorous about it. Exciting and at the same time angry, saying we MUST support Janet.
The question is why. I know exactly why. I bet the Janet camp knows exactly why. I wonder if the Trung camp knows.

Please Lam Pho, enlighten us!! ??? I'm not totally sure why but would love to hear it.

It was such a close race, it's my bet that if those who had voted for one of the other many candidates - had only Janet or Trung from which to choose, Janet would have won by a wider margin.

Please Lam Pho, enlighten us!! ??? I'm not totally sure why but would love to hear it.

It was such a close race, it's my bet that if those who had voted for one of the other many candidates - had only Janet or Trung from which to choose, Janet would have won by a wider margin.