An employee with the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office has filed a federal lawsuit against the district attorney and the county, alleging discrimination.

The lawsuit was filed April 29 in U.S. District Court in Eugene.

Nicole Jenson has worked at the office since 2000, currently serving as a trial assistant. In her lawsuit, she alleges that District Attorney Patrick Flaherty violated her freedom of speech, and that the county and Flaherty together retaliated against her as a whistleblower and for opposing an unlawful practice, and that she was discriminated against because of her sex and her family relationships.

The amount of damages Jenson is seeking has not yet been determined.

Flaherty did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that after Flaherty was elected and took office in January 2011, several incidents precipitated a change to her schedule that caused her hardship.

First, Jenson’s mother-in-law worked at the DA’s office until January 2011, when according to the lawsuit she quit “after being continually undermined” after Flaherty took office. According to the lawsuit, Flaherty was upset at the woman’s decision to resign.

Jenson also helped organize unionization efforts with the trial assistants; currently several former prosecutors are suing Flaherty alleging they were fired for their union activities.

In the lawsuit, Jenson alleges that Flaherty, through an assistant, asked her to run a license plate through a law enforcement database. The license plate, the lawsuit alleges, was for a car that had been parked in Flaherty’s parking spot. Jenson reported what she believed was the inappropriate use of the database.

The Oregon State Police conducted an investigation in 2011 and determined the DA’s office had not abused the database. After she reported what she believed was an abuse of the database, the lawsuit alleges Flaherty asked a co-worker whether she “was going to be a problem.”

In September 2011, Jenson received a “needs improvement” mark on her evaluation, the first bad review she said she’d ever received.

“Jenson signed the review under protest, noting the only reason she received the negative review was due to her opposition to changes that were being improperly conducted in the workplace,” the lawsuit states.

Between 2004 and January 2012, Jenson worked full days on Monday and Tuesday, as well as Wednesday mornings, sharing a full-time position with another trial assistant.

But in December 2011, the lawsuit alleges, misdemeanor trial assistants received new job duties that were a change to the workload. Jenson complained that the added work doubled her part-time caseload. Two days after her complaint, the lawsuit alleges, Jenson was transferred to work in juvenile court, and her schedule was changed to five days a week, from 8 a.m. to noon.

Jenson filed a grievance with the office, requesting her schedule be fixed, and the request was denied. In February 2012, she filed a complaint with the Bureau of Labor and Industries, and in January of this year the bureau found substantial evidence to support Jenson’s discrimination claims.

Jenson’s attorney, Beth Creighton, said she hopes a temporary injunction in the lawsuit will allow Jenson to immediately get her old schedule back.

“It seems like we shouldn’t have to file a lawsuit for them to be reasonable, but apparently we do,” she said.