Four people suing former San Diego City Clerk Liz Maland for age and racial discrimination must continue their legal efforts against her separately, a judge has ruled.

A discrimination lawsuit the four plaintiffs filed jointly against Maland and the city in late 2022 will be broken into four separate cases and handled individually, according to a recent ruling by Superior Court Judge James Mangione.

Maland, who retired in December 2022  after 17 years as clerk and just before the lawsuit was filed, is accused of denying her employees promotions if she considered them too old or if they weren’t White or Hispanic.

The suit also says Maland harassed workers by making demeaning remarks such as “I own you,” and retaliated against workers if they complained about her behavior.

Filed by four current and former city employees, the lawsuit says city officials failed to stop the alleged discrimination, harassment and retaliation even after being made aware of it.

In a prepared statement just after the lawsuit was filed, Maland called the allegations “so repugnant and just antithetical to what I stand for.”

City clerk is a high-level position that includes overseeing city elections, organizing City Council agendas, managing records with a focus on transparency and processing applications for U.S. passports.

Diana Fuentes, Maland’s top deputy, was appointed interim city clerk after Maland’s departure and was eventually appointed to the job permanently by the City Council.

The four plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Maland — Ivy Blackwood-Evans, Samantha Ely, A. Trida Hughes and Sabrina Tatum — are all 50 or older.

The suit says “Maland has openly stated that she does not like to promote older employees.”

The lawsuit says Maland denied promotional opportunities, training and other employment benefits to all workers who were not White or Hispanic.

Ely is Japanese and Native American. The other three plaintiffs are Black.

Maland also limited the access to training required for promotion for workers who weren’t White or Hispanic, the suit says.

Maland is also accused of frequently making demeaning remarks to the employees and others at work. That included saying “I own you” to a employee whose heritage has a history of slavery, the suit says.

The attorney who filed the suit, Michael Conger, noted that no Black employee had been promoted within the City Clerk’s office between 2011 and the filing of the lawsuit in December 2022.

When Maland retired, she was praised by council members as “the epitome of professionalism and grace” and someone who showed great patience working with the public.

In her prepared statement about the lawsuit, Maland called the suit “baseless” and said it played a minor role in her decision to retire a bit earlier than she had planned.

“I hope that my decades-long record of public service and the professional and compassionate way I comported myself during that time will speak for me in my absence,” she said.