Just over a year ago, a San Diego County jury awarded former National City police officer Ashley Cummins $10 million in damages for the repeated discrimination and harassment she said she was subjected to while serving the community.
Rather than pay the judgment, city officials decided to appeal the decision. Now the long-running case is headed to a state appellate court, and the damages award has climbed to $14.7 million — close to half of the $33 million the National City Police Department will spend this year and 20% of the city’s entire general fund spending.
Lawyers for Cummins, who has been unable to find new work in law enforcement and is working multiple jobs to pay her bills, said interest on the debt is costing taxpayers more than $2,600 every day.
“Our client remains committed to seeing this matter through the legal process,” attorneys Jeffrey Hogue and Tyler Belong wrote in a statement. “At the same time, she is eager to bring this chapter to a close and achieve closure after what has been a long and difficult experience.”
National City officials did not respond to requests for comment about the decision to appeal, which court records show was formally served late last month.
Cummins spent eight years with the St. Louis County Police Department, the largest law enforcement agency in Missouri, before she applied to the National City Police Department in 2018 for family reasons.
Almost as soon as she arrived, Cummins began being harassed by fellow officers and even supervisors because she is openly gay, she said in her lawsuit and testimony at the 2025 trial.
Ashley Cummins, a former National City police officer, poses with a kitten. Cummins was awarded more than $10 million last year in her discrimination and harassment lawsuit against her former employer. (Courtesy)
“The bullying and harassment were a result of the culture at NCPOD that expected male officers to excel above female officers and expected female officers to be submissive to their male counterparts,” her lawsuit alleged.
“In fact, many of the male officers and supervisors indicated that if female officers wanted to fit in at NCPD, they either needed to be submissive to the male officers or sleep with them,” the complaint added.
Cummins said she complained about the behavior multiple times but nothing was done. She also said she was not the first woman to report harassment by department employees.
“At least one sergeant at NCPD has responded to a female officer’s discrimination complaint by saying ‘I’ve had a female officer file a complaint about me before,’” the suit said. “‘Don’t be that cop. If you do that, you’ll be just another female cop who plays (the woman card) because she can’t handle National City.’
“‘Things will just get worse for you if you do that,’” the lawsuit quotes the unnamed sergeant as saying.
After a trial early last year, a jury found that Cummins had been sexually harassed, discriminated against and retaliated against during her employment as a National City police employee.
Jurors awarded her a total of $10 million in damages. That award included $166,452 in lost wages and $1.4 million for lost future wages, as well as $4.2 million each for past and future pain and suffering.
The jury also ordered National City to pay Cummins more than $300,000 for her costs and almost $3.5 million in attorney fees.
In total, the jury award from 2025 was more than $13.7 million. But the judgment is also subject to 7% interest, which accrues daily until paid and has been adding to the debt by some $2,640 every day.
National City may have had little alternative to fighting the Cummins judgment in court.
The city already needed to tap some $9 million in reserves last year to balance its budget for the spending cycle that ends June 30. The mayor and city council already are confronting millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls for the upcoming budget.
The legal team representing Cummins said city officials appear to be making the impasse worse — by extending the litigation and failing to take stronger action against perpetrators.
“Individuals named in the lawsuit have been promoted, and we are not aware of any investigation into the evidence presented at trial or any disciplinary action taken,” they wrote in their statement.
“We also understand that the department has recently approved substantial compensation increases and that the former chief who was involved in the case has been appointed as interim city manager.”