Dr. Torria Bond v. Azusa Pacific University

On July 9, 2010, after a ten day trial, Linda Miller Savitt and Linda B. Hurevitz received a defense verdict after only 2 1/2 hours of jury deliberations. Dr. Torria Bond was an Associate Professor in the School of Education, Department of Teacher Education at Azusa Pacific University. Teacher Education is a graduate program and all of the classes are at night. In past years Dr. Bond had substituted administrative duties for some of the teaching she would have otherwise done in order to have her evenings free to be with her family. When she felt that the administrative duties were requiring too many hours of her time she informed the Chairman of the department that she would prefer to teach more classes. As with the other full-time faculty members, she was assigned classes on two campuses. She did not want to drive to the High Desert campus in Victorville which was the closest campus to her base campus, San Bernardino, and therefore refused to sign off on her work load. She tried to get out of the drive by presenting a doctor’s note indicating that if she did not feel safe driving at night that she should not. The University determined that this was neither a work restriction nor a disability which required any accommodation. Dr. Bond also claimed that she was treated differently because of her race, African-American. The Chairman of her department was African and the Dean of the school was African-American.