As reported in the L.A. Times and Daily News, Jeffrey A. Lipow recently won a case of retaliation and wrongful termination against the City of Los Angeles. His client, Richard Joaquin, was awarded over $2.1 million in damages, surpassing the $1.5 million settlement the city paid in 2007 to black firefighter Tennie Pierce, who sued for racial discrimination when colleagues put dog food in his spaghetti as a prank.
An LAPD motorcycle officer whose ongoing dispute with his superior snowballed after he was punished for clocking out five minutes early one day has been awarded $2 million from a jury who believed his subsequent firing was unfair.
Officer Richard Joaquin has been reinstated with back pay and is now stationed at the Los Angeles Police Department's Valley Traffic Division.
The jury awarded Joaquin the money even after a police Internal Affairs investigation and a high level review board sided with the superior and upheld Joaquin's dismissal.
City officials said they would consider appealing the award, the latest in a series of multimillion dollar payouts to city employees who have complained about mistreatment or discrimination.
Joaquin, of Corona, argued that the LAPD had retaliated against him when he filed complaints against the supervisor, who cited Joaquin in 2005 for insubordination for leaving work early.
"For the supervisor, it was a blatant act of disobedience," said Supervising Deputy City Attorney Daniel Aguilera.
That incident triggered a series of exchanges that eventually led to Joaquin's dismissal.
But Joaquin's attorney, Jeff Lipow, said his client saw the disciplinary action or leaving early as another example of the harassment that he had been experiencing for more than a year.
"My guy felt this was unfair and filed a complaint with Internal Affairs against his superior," Lipow said. "He felt he had been harassed for an 18-24 month period and this was the last straw."
Lipow said Joaquin, who was working as a motor officer at the Central Division when the incident took place, did not want to be interviewed.
Aguilera said the city has an aggressive zero-tolerance policy for harassment and was surprised it took Joaquin so long to file a complaint. A subsequent investigation cleared the supervisor of any wrongdoing.
Internal Affairs recommended that Joaquin be dismissed - a finding upheld by the Board of Rights, an LAPD tribunal of two command officers and one civilian who review disciplinary actions.
Joaquin appealed his dismissal in the courts and won the unanimous jury verdict against the city, which included back pay.
City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said the city is looking into appealing, but added the verdict is directly related to budget cuts in his office.
"We are down so many bodies, at some point we are going to be at the point where we're walking into court and trying a case without any preparation at all," Trutanich said. "If we had the budget we had two or three years ago, this wouldn't be happening."
Still, the city has been shelling out big money - in the form of settlements or jury awards - for years. In the dog food case, not only did Pierce get a hefty sum, two white Los Angeles Fire Department captains who took part in the prank won a separate judgment totaling $1.6 million, arguing they were more severely punished than a Latino firefighter in the case.
In addition, the LAFD cost the city $6.2 million for mistreatment of a lesbian firefighter, Brenda Lee, in 2007. In 2009, three black workers were awarded a total of $1.2 million after failing to get promotions.
Councilman Dennis Zine, who sits on both the Budget and Finance and Public Safety committees, agreed with Trutanich, saying the Joaquin case can be blamed on staff cuts at City Hall.
"If the City Attorney had the investigators he wants and had more time to prepare for cases, maybe we wouldn't have lost this case," Zine said. "It's $2 million that comes directly out of the public safety in the city."
Trutanich has had to take a 10 percent cut in his budget this year, resulting in reduced hiring and an inability to fully staff his Bureau of Investigations.
"It's an expensive retaliation," Lipow acknowledged. "The city never should have gone after him. What's expensive is the department chose to file charges and convict him. That's where the damage was. It was retaliation against him for making a complaint."
Jeffrey Lipow was born in Los Angeles in 1952. After graduating with distinction from California State University San Jose, Mr. Lipow attended Southwestern Law School where he graduated with a Juris Doctor Degree in 1978. While at Southwestern, Jeffrey Lipow was the winner of the American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law.
Mr. Lipow has attained broad trial experience handling diverse, complex matters. Mr. Lipow has tried numerous employment cases, including race, gender and disability discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment. Mr. Lipow has also tried cases involving wrongful death, catastrophic injury, insurance coverage and bad faith, and consumer fraud.
In May, 2010 Mr. Lipow obtained $2.1 million dollar verdict for a police officer who was retaliated against by the LAPD for reporting misconduct by a superior (Joaquin v. City of Los Angeles). In January 2010 after obtaining a $250,000 settlement from a co-defendant, Mr. Lipow obtained a $130,000 verdict against an insurance broker for negligence in insuring a boat which sank (Parker v. Wells).
As the lead trial attorney in the firm, Mr. Lipow oversees all litigation matters, ensuring that all cases are vigorously and timely prepared. One of the policies of the Firm is to maximize settlement opportunities to ensure compensation for the Firm's clients. In furtherance of this policy, the Firm pursues discovery aggressively, and presents the strength of this case to both the defense and mediator to maximize the results in settlement negotiations. Recent, confidential settlements include $2,300,000 in a fraud case involving a shareholder's dispute, $1,500,000 in a sexual harassment action against a well-known public figure, and a $1,700,000 settlement in a wrongful death case.
Mr. Lipow is admitted to practice before all courts in the State of California, the United States Supreme Court, the First, Second and Ninth Circuits of the Federal Courts of Appeal, and all United States District Courts in California.
Employment Discrimination