A Modesto judge is suing her local and state bosses, claiming disability discrimination and whistleblower retaliation.
Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Linda McFadden’s Lyme disease can be aggravated by allergens from a courthouse tunnel used to transport inmates, her lawsuit says. Assigning her a courtroom near the tunnel, as a supervising judge did, fails to accommodate McFadden’s medical condition, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit claims the then-Presiding Judge Carrie Stephens punished McFadden after she complained about perceived “ethical violations” and concerns that the local courts’ administrative procedures could endanger criminal defendants’ rights.
“Judges may sit on the bench, but they still go to work every day like the rest of us, and they should be afforded the same basic workplace rights,” McFadden’s attorney, Amanda Malucchi, told The Modesto Focus.
“Just because someone wears a robe doesn’t mean they give up the right to be treated fairly, speak up about problems, or ask for accommodations when needed,” Malucchi said.
Named as defendants in the civil lawsuit are Stanislaus Superior Court and the California Judicial Council, which oversees courts throughout the state. Both entities deny all allegations, according to legal documents.
Stephens is not a defendant, and current Presiding Judge Sonny Sandhu appears nowhere in the lawsuit.
Spokespeople for both court agencies said they can’t comment on pending litigation, and McFadden and Stephens declined for the same reason.
McFadden, a former Stanislaus prosecutor, was elected to a judgeship in 2002 when she was 39. Over the years she has served on the court’s executive committee and has overseen criminal courts, juvenile courts and Stanislaus’ appellate division.
High-profile cases she presided over include the murder trial of Jeremy Fennell, who shot and killed a homeless man outside Fennell’s Modesto tattoo shop in 2019.
A prolonged shouting match between McFadden and the late Frank Carson, a prominent Modesto defense attorney, made headlines in The Modesto Bee. Carson later lost a campaign for district attorney, was tried for murder and acquitted, and died in 2020. His widow and six other defendants got $22.5 million in wrongful prosecution settlements unrelated to McFadden.
McFadden’s decades-long participation as an accomplished distance runner in ultramarathons includes many races of 50 miles across the globe, and some of 100 miles. She once presented advice on avoiding blisters to marathon trainees.
Running alongside teens in one Modesto Marathon, she “realized how fortunate I was to live in a community where people work together to provide opportunities like the marathon training program for students focused on accomplishing a challenging goal,” McFadden told Dusty Bottoms, a local running group, in 2021.
But Lyme disease, contracted from an infected tick, has led to fatigue, joint pain and nausea, the lawsuit says. McFadden’s flare-ups are alleviated by working in “clean, well-ventilated environments.”
Stephens, her supervisor, refused to assign McFadden to a courtroom further from the inmate transport tunnel, the lawsuit says. She now has a floating assignment without a designated courtroom in the soon-to-be replaced courthouse serving Stanislaus County since 1960.
In July 2024, McFadden submitted a complaint to the Commission on Judicial Performance, an independent agency that investigates and disciplines judges. McFadden said her medical limitations were not accommodated, and she also took issue with local calendaring procedures that could endanger criminal defendants’ rights, the lawsuit says.
Stephens then “mocked her diagnosis and suggested her request for accommodation was an orchestrated attempt to get out of her new assignment” to handle misdemeanor arraignments, the lawsuit says.
Soon after, McFadden’s access to the court’s case management system was revoked and she was removed from the appellate division and executive committee. The Stanislaus court system is forced to hire visiting judges from other counties to cover cases she could preside over if her disability were accommodated – wasting public money, the lawsuit says.
“These retaliatory actions … (were) deliberately exclusionary and calculated to humiliate and isolate her from her colleagues,” hurting her health and reputation and in violation of state employment and whistleblower protection laws, the lawsuit says.
She is suing for unspecified compensatory damages and attorney fees.
“No one should be above accountability, and no one should be beneath protection,” said Malucchi, McFadden’s lawyer, of the Goyette, Ruano & Thompson law firm.
To avoid conflicts with colleagues on the Stanislaus bench, her lawsuit has been assigned to a retired Placer County judge, a document says.
A procedural case management conference is scheduled for Dec. 15.
A $352 million courthouse under construction in downtown Modesto at G, H, Ninth and 10th streets, with 27 new courtrooms, could be finished by March.
Garth Stapley is the accountability reporter for The Modesto Focus, a project of the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. Contact him at garth@cvlocaljournalism.org.