Neither Heath, 38, one of two female inspectors in the 7,000-officer department, nor her attorney, Geoffrey R. Johnson, could be reached for comment yesterday.
Franklin-Suber said that the $150,000 was the city's original settlement offer and that the agreement included no transfer or other change-of-employment terms for Heath, who works nights in the Command Inspection Division.
Franklin-Suber said the agreement carried no admission of wrongdoing by the city.
``Compared to the award that Evelyn Heath received from the jury, and the fact that under the law she would have also been entitled to attorney's fees that we estimated at $100,000 . . . we believed the settlement was a fair economic result,'' Franklin-Suber added.
Heath's suit contended that she was sexually harassed by a supervisor during 1993 when she worked in the 19th Police District in Overbrook. The suit also asserted that Heath was disciplined and transferred after she complained about sex discrimination.
At her trial, Heath contended that the emotional stress of the workplace sexual harassment and retaliation she purportedly experienced was the main cause of the breakup of her marriage to Police Capt. John Heath.
Heath contended that while she was at the 19th District, a direct supervisor spoke to her using obscenities, threw out her complaints about sexist posters and postcards displayed on office walls, and treated her vacation requests unfairly.
A U.S. District Court jury ruled in her favor and in September 1996 awarded Heath $120 in compensatory damages for the one-day suspension and $375,000 for emotional distress.
The city appealed and, almost a year after the verdict, Judge Shapiro suddenly vacated the verdict and ordered a new trial.
The judge's ruling was based on the discovery of a carton of personal effects that Heath, then a lieutenant, gave in 1993 to a friend for safekeeping. The carton included a love letter she had written to a fellow police officer that described Heath's love for him and regret over the end of their romantic relationship.
Lawyers for the city argued that the jury should have known about the love letter and Heath's romantic involvement with the officer because jurors could have inferred that Heath's romantic troubles - and not work-related problems - were the source of her emotional distress.
