Ex-LA Prosecutor's $1.5M Award Axed; She Was the Problem, Appeals Panel Says
A California appeals court has overturned a $1.5 million discrimination verdict awarded to a former Los Angeles prosecutor.
Lynn Magnandonovan claimed she was retaliated against by City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and other supervisory employees before being wrongfully terminated in 2002, after she complained of sex discrimination and blew the whistle on other attorneys’ misconduct. But in a 2-1 ruling (PDF) Wednesday, the court found, among other reasons, that she had failed to prove her case because of a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the city’s actions.
Although her lawyer at the time of the 2006 jury verdict described it as an “indictment” of the city prosecutor’s office, two of the three judges on the appellate panel said the evidence actually showed that it was Magnandonovan who needed an attitude adjustment, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Presiding Justice Paul Turner, who authored the opinion, and Justice Sandy Kriegler, who concurred, “painted a far different picture: one of an unprofessional, problem employee who was openly hostile to judges, court officials and co-workers,” the newspaper writes.
However, in a dissent in the Second Appellate District case, California Court of Appeal Associate Justice Richard Mosk says he would affirm the judgment.
“Viewed in a light most favorable to the judgment, as it must be, the evidence was sufficient to support a rational inference that the city’s stated reasons for plaintiff’s discharge were pretextual and that she was discharged in retaliation for one or more of her prior complaints of discrimination and retaliation,” he writes.
The reversal of the jury verdict also means that Lynn Magnandonovan’s legal counsel will lose out on a separate attorney fee award that could have amounted to about $2 million, the newspaper notes in an earlier Los Angeles Times article written at the time of the jury verdict.