How Southern California Medical Center Silenced a Sexual Assault Survivor

EvilCorporations.com • Case No. B326830 / 22STCV17630 • 13 min read

What Cannot Be Priced: Years of Silence Under Threat

Omar Kader was hired in July 2016 to help run a medical center that existed specifically to serve people who had nowhere else to turn. Within two years, the man at the top of the clinic’s medical hierarchy had, according to the court record, turned Kader’s workplace into a place of predation. By July 2018, Kader’s direct superior was commenting on how his slacks fit his body. He was asking whether Kader watched pornography. He was staring at Kader’s body and wetting his lips. This was a man who had power over Kader’s career.

Then it became worse. According to the allegations filed in the court record, on November 18, 2018, Kader was forced to perform oral sex. Less than five months later, on April 17, 2019, he was forced again. After the second incident, Rasekhi allegedly told Kader that if he told anyone, he would lose his job.

Think about what that threat requires. It requires a person to go back to work the next day. To write emails. To sit in meetings. To compose text messages expressing support for the man who violated him, which is precisely what the court record shows Kader doing, and which the defendants later tried to use as evidence that nothing had happened. The silence that abusers demand is not passivity. It is a performance. It is exhausting and it is corrosive, and it is exactly what this institution’s structure made possible.

After the June 2019 arbitration agreement was signed, eight more incidents of sexual harassment and assault allegedly occurred over the next two and a half years. When Kader began pulling back, when he refused to travel alone with Rasekhi, when he refused to be behind closed doors with him, the retaliation started. His pay was cut. He was demoted. A bonus was taken back. The Center’s CEO, Sheila Busheri, allegedly began making false statements about him in July 2021. The institution did not protect him. It punished him for protecting himself.

Kader eventually filed a complaint with the state civil rights agency in May 2022. That filing named not just Rasekhi and Busheri, but six of the Center’s board members. These were the people responsible for the governance of an institution that holds itself out as a place of healing for the most vulnerable. The lawsuit alleged that the defendants were aware of Rasekhi’s conduct based on the complaints of other employees as well. Kader was not the only one.

What the company did after that complaint was filed is a matter of record. It hired one of the country’s most powerful law firms, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan, and moved to send the entire case into private arbitration, away from a judge and a jury, away from a public record, away from accountability. The message sent to Kader was the same message that was sent the first time: your story does not belong in public.

The court ultimately refused to allow that. But the fact that it took a federal law, an appellate court writ, a second trial court hearing, and another full appeal to reach that result tells you everything about what survivors face when corporations are allowed to bury cases in arbitration by default.

Straight From the Court Record: What They Said and What It Proves

The following quotes are taken verbatim from California Court of Appeal Case No. B326830, certified for publication January 29, 2024. Nothing below is paraphrased or invented.

“Rasekhi threatened to fire Kader if he revealed the incidents to anyone. Kader kept the incidents to himself out of shame and fear of losing his job.”

• This passage directly establishes that Kader’s silence was coerced, not voluntary. The same silence was later used by defendants to argue no “dispute” existed, making the threat a self-sealing mechanism: assault the employee, threaten them into silence, then point to the silence as proof there was no dispute at the time the arbitration clause was signed.
• The court rejected this logic. Silence maintained under threat of termination is not the absence of a dispute; it is the suppression of one.

“In support of the motion, they submitted Busheri’s declaration stating that Kader never made any complaint to her about Rasekhi’s conduct during his employment… during the time of the alleged incidents, Kader sent text messages to Busheri expressing support of Rasekhi.”

• The CEO submitted a declaration that she had never received a complaint from Kader, and offered text messages showing Kader expressing support for his alleged abuser as evidence against him. This is a documented example of institutional leadership using a survivor’s silence and performance of normalcy, both of which were allegedly compelled by threat, as a legal weapon against that same survivor.
• The court’s finding that no dispute arose until the DFEH filing in May 2022 renders this declaration legally irrelevant to the arbitration question, but its submission on the record illustrates the posture of the institution throughout.

“A dispute arises when one party asserts a right, claim, or demand, and the other side expresses disagreement or takes an adversarial posture… A dispute cannot arise until both sides have expressed their disagreement, either through words or actions.”

• This is the court’s core legal holding. It directly closes the loophole corporations have tried to exploit: sign an arbitration clause with an employee who is already being harmed but has not yet complained, then argue the arbitration clause predates the dispute because the employee never spoke up.
• The ruling cites consistent federal district court decisions in Minnesota, Florida, and Utah that reached the same conclusion, establishing a clear multi-jurisdictional legal consensus against this tactic.

“The Barnes court acknowledged that the terms ‘dispute’ and ‘claim’ have distinct meanings as used by Congress, but then conflated the terms in that court’s analysis.”

• The defendants cited a federal district court case from Pennsylvania to argue that a dispute arises the moment a harmful act occurs, not when a complaint is filed. The California appeals court specifically rejects this interpretation and identifies the legal error in that reasoning: confusing when a legal claim accrues (at the moment of injury) with when a dispute arises (when someone actually asserts that claim against the other party).
• This distinction matters enormously for every worker in America who is being harmed but cannot yet safely speak up.

“There is no evidence of a disagreement or controversy in this case until after the date of the arbitration agreement and the effective date of the Act, when the employee filed charges with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) in May 2022.”

• This is the court’s dispositive factual finding. The arbitration agreement Kader signed on June 25, 2019, was signed more than three years before any dispute legally existed. It was, by the court’s definition, a predispute agreement, and therefore void under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act.
• The Center defendants’ entire argument collapses on this single point. Their own evidence confirmed Kader never complained, meaning by their own account no dispute existed before May 2022.

What the Company Argued vs. What the Court Found

The Center defendants made two primary legal arguments to keep this case out of public court. The court dismantled both.

The Wider Damage: What This Case Represents Beyond One Man’s Story

Public Health

Sexual violence in the workplace causes documented, lasting trauma. This case layers that harm with institutional betrayal at a clinic meant to serve the vulnerable.

• Kader alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress as a formal cause of action. The conduct alleged, including repeated forced sexual acts and years of ongoing harassment, represents the exact pattern of prolonged workplace trauma that research consistently links to PTSD, depression, and anxiety disorders.
• The institution at the center of this case is a community clinic serving low-income and uninsured patients. The alleged perpetrator was the clinic’s chief medical officer. This is a person responsible for medical decision-making, patient care standards, and the professional culture of a health facility that vulnerable populations depend on. The presence of an alleged abuser in that role poses a documented institutional safety concern extending beyond Kader alone.
• Kader alleged the defendants were aware of Rasekhi’s conduct based on complaints from other employees, meaning this was not an isolated incident unknown to leadership. If true, the health and safety of every employee at that clinic was compromised by an institutional decision to take no documented protective action.
• The retaliation Kader described, including demotion, pay cuts, and a retracted bonus, mirrors the well-documented chilling effect that punished complainants have on other potential victims. Every worker at the Center who witnessed or heard about Kader’s treatment received a clear institutional message about the consequences of speaking up.

Economic Inequality

The arbitration clause in this case was a tool of economic power. Understanding how it was deployed requires understanding the structural advantage it gave to the employer.

• Kader signed the June 2019 arbitration agreement as a condition of employment with a company that had power over his livelihood. Workers with fewer financial resources or fewer alternative employment options face more coercive conditions when signing these agreements; refusal often means job loss.
• The defendants retained Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan, one of the highest-billing litigation firms in the United States. Kader was represented by a small law office. The ability to sustain a multi-year appellate fight against elite corporate counsel is a resource that most workers who sign arbitration agreements will never have.
• The arbitration agreement itself required that arbitrable claims be resolved before non-arbitrable claims, a sequencing provision that would have effectively frozen Kader’s full lawsuit in court proceedings while the more powerful party controlled the private arbitration process and its timeline.
• If the Center’s motion to compel arbitration had been upheld at the trial court level and never appealed, Kader’s case would have been resolved in a private forum with no public record. Future workers at the Center, or future workers knowing about this case from public reporting, would have no access to the facts that were established in the public court record now available in this published appellate decision.
• The trial court initially granted the motion to compel arbitration before Kader’s attorneys filed a successful writ of mandate with the appellate court to force reconsideration. The process required two rounds of trial court proceedings and a full appeal spanning years. Workers who cannot sustain that fight accept private arbitration by default, not by genuine choice.

Putting Numbers to What Was at Stake

Who Is Accountable and What You Can Do

This ruling is a legal win, but a legal win is the beginning of accountability, not the end. The following people and institutions are named in the public court record and remain relevant to how this case proceeds.

Named Parties in the Public Record

• Southern California Medical Center, Inc.: The institutional defendant. A community clinic. The source document does not confirm whether any internal policy changes, leadership changes, or independent reviews have occurred.
• Mohammad Rasekhi, Chief Medical Officer: Named defendant. Alleged perpetrator of all sexual assault and harassment claims. The case now proceeds in public court on the merits.
• Sheila Busheri, Chief Executive Officer: Named defendant. Alleged to have retaliated against Kader with false statements beginning July 2021 and submitted a declaration denying Kader ever complained to her.
• Six unnamed board members of Southern California Medical Center: Named defendants. Their specific identities are not printed in the source document as provided. [REDACTED – Not in Source]
• Modern HR, Inc.: Named in the original complaint. The motion to compel arbitration by Modern HR is a separate matter not decided in this ruling. Modern HR ceased its relationship with the Center in January 2022.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies That Should Be Monitoring This

• California Civil Rights Department (formerly DFEH): Kader filed his initial complaint here. The agency issued a right-to-sue letter. This body has authority over workplace harassment and discrimination claims under California law and should be tracking outcomes of cases it processes.
• California Medical Board: Mohammad Rasekhi is a physician. The California Medical Board has jurisdiction over physician conduct, including conduct involving abuse of professional power. No action by this body is reflected in the source document.
• California Department of Public Health: Southern California Medical Center is a licensed healthcare facility. The CDPH has oversight authority over the conduct of licensed clinics.
• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): The federal body with jurisdiction over Title VII claims involving sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace.
• U.S. Department of Labor: Relevant to the retaliation claims (demotion, pay cut, retracted bonus), which constitute potential wage and labor violations.

What You Can Do

• If you are a worker who has signed an arbitration agreement: The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (9 U.S.C. §§ 401, 402) means that any predispute arbitration clause in your employment contract cannot be used to force your sexual assault or harassment case into private arbitration. This is federal law. Keep a copy of this case number (B326830) and this ruling. Share it with anyone facing the same pressure.
• If you work at a healthcare facility with a known abuser in leadership: Document everything. File complaints with your state’s medical board and civil rights department simultaneously. The DFEH filing in this case was the moment the “dispute” legally began, which triggered all federal protections. Early filing matters.
• Connect with worker advocacy organizations: Organizations like the National Employment Law Project, Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, and state-level workers’ rights centers provide resources for employees navigating harassment, retaliation, and forced arbitration. These organizations also lobby for expansion of the federal act beyond sexual assault and harassment to all employment disputes.
• Support legislation that ends all forced arbitration in employment: The Ending Forced Arbitration Act covers only sexual assault and harassment cases. Millions of workers facing wage theft, discrimination, and unsafe workplaces are still forced into private arbitration. The Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act would close this gap. Contact your federal representatives.
• If you have information about conditions at Southern California Medical Center: Whistleblower protections exist at both the state and federal level for workers who report healthcare facility misconduct. The California Whistleblower Protection Act and federal False Claims Act provisions may apply depending on the nature of the information.