By LINDA COADY, ESQ., Andrews Publications Staff Writer

A California appeals court has dismissed a former TV weatherman's wrongful-firing lawsuit against a Los Angeles NBC affiliate, finding no jury question as to whether the reason for his termination was his alleged sexual harassment of co-workers or racial discrimination against him.

The court said Christopher Nance, who is black, admitted that he had behaved inappropriately and had received a number of written warnings about his consistent and well-documented repeated pattern of harassment over a period of three years.

In addition, the court said NBC demonstrated that it had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for firing Nance: violation of the company's sexual harassment policy.

According to the court opinion, beginning in 1999 a number of female employees at KNBC-TV complained that Nance had sexually harassed them.

The harassment involved his allegedly making sexual comments, asking them out on dates and touching them inappropriately.

Nance received both verbal and written warnings about his conduct, was given opportunities to respond to the accusations, and received one-on-one harassment training with the company employee assistance consultant, the opinion says.

He admitted to some of the misconduct but denied other incidents reported to management at the station.

After Nance returned from a one-week suspension KNBC learned that a female employee was thinking about asking for a transfer to escape Nance's sexually suggestive conduct and comments, the opinion says.

The station investigated and allegedly discovered that Nance had harassed three women after he came back from his suspension.

Concluding that Nance's conduct over three years constituted "egregious violations" of both KNBC's and NBC's harassment policies, the station fired him in December 2002.

Nance sued KNBC and NBC Inc. in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging wrongful termination in violation of public policy, breach of contract and unlawful business practices.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that Nance could not show that their legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for firing him - his sexual harassment - was pretextual.

The trial court granted the motion.

Nance appealed, challenging the court's protective order that barred him from accessing the employment records of two other KNBC workers who allegedly engaged in conduct similar to Nance's.

He said they were treated more favorably than he was. Neither employee was a party to Nance's lawsuit.

The California 2nd District Court of Appeal affirmed.

The appeals court said that because a plaintiff's need for information will "not easily override a third party's privacy rights," Nance had to show that relevance trumps privacy in this case.

In addition to establishing relevance, Nance was required to show that he and the other employees are similarly situated, the court said.

Nance testified that he heard rumors that one of the two employees had made a pass at a female intern, but the appeals court rejected the information as hearsay.

As to the second employee, Nance said, based on "information and belief," that he had fondled female co-workers.

The panel said this employee had retired nearly three years before KNBC fired Nance, so they were not similarly situated.

Finally, the appeals court said the trial judge did not err in granting summary judgment to the defendants.

KNBC produced competent, admissible evidence that it had a legitimate business reason for its decision and that reason was "facially unrelated to prohibited bias," the opinion says.

Nance failed to meet his burden of rebutting that reason, the panel held.

He offered no actual evidence that the station's explanation for his termination was pretext and did not raise a rational inference that the true cause of his firing was intentional discrimination, the appeals court ruled.