Attorney Sues San Francisco City After Losing Job Due to Accidental Racy ‘Reply-All’ Email

A former employee of the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, who lost his job after accidentally sending a “reply-all” email asking his boss, “What colour panties you have on,” has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming the message was sent by mistake.

Jovan Thomas, 56, complained on Friday, six months after the inappropriate email was discovered by San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins and her team. The email, sent in response to a communication from the city’s top prosecutor, was deemed highly inappropriate, according to Mercury News.

Jenkins’ office condemned the email as “misogynistic behaviour,” and Thomas, who had a prior history of sexual harassment accusations, was dismissed following an internal review.

In his filing to the Superior Court, Thomas asserted that the email was intended for a longtime friend whose father had recently passed away. He described it as a “goofy, playful” joke meant to cheer up his male friend.

“[The] text to his friend was a whimsical question that was part of plaintiffs standard jocular repertoire with his friend,” Thomas lawyers wrote in the filing.

“In the context of their long-time friendship, the plaintiff’s flip question had no sexual, off-colour, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning or intent,” they added. 

“Rather, it was a goofy, non-sequitur by one long-time friend to another friend intended to try to divert and cheer him up while he was going through a difficult and upsetting experience.”

Thomas is suing the city for invasion of privacy, defamation, and severe emotional distress. He is seeking a jury trial, along with compensatory and punitive damages due to his termination.

Following his firing, it was disclosed that Jane Doe had filed a lawsuit against Thomas in 2018, alleging that he sexually harassed her while working on a case involving her and her son.

The woman claimed that Thomas touched her buttocks and made sexual advances, and she felt compelled to comply due to concerns that refusing him might affect her access to victim services, according to the San Francisco Standard.

In 2019, the victim agreed to remove Thomas from her case against the city. Representatives for the city then filed a motion to dismiss the case in 2021, arguing that Thomas’ alleged conduct “was not in the course and scope of his employment.”

A judge agreed with this argument and dismissed the case in December of that year.