Attorney Calvin House
A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy is not entitled to $400,000 in attorney fees and more than $52,000 in legal costs as a result of his whistleblower lawsuit against the county, a California appeals court concluded.
In a July 8 decision, the Second Appellate District court found that a lower court erred in awarding the respondent, D’Andre Lampkin, attorney fees in a lawsuit that alleged the county’s Sheriff Department retaliated against him in the wake of a contentious interaction Lampkin had with a retired deputy sheriff, Michael Reddy, in 2017.
In turn, Reddy’s friends in the department retaliated against Lampkin, leading to a suspension and loss of some medical benefits. But state law allowed for an affirmative defense that the county put forth during a trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“Here … (Lampkin) proved the elements of a whistleblower retaliation claim, but appellant County of Los Angeles … established the affirmative defense provided by (Labor Code) section 1102.6, and Lampkin obtained no relief,” the appeals court said in its opinion. “... We must decide if Lampkin has brought a ‘successful action’ under section 1102.5, and is therefore entitled to a fee award. We hold an employee’s action is not successful if the defendant employer has established the same-decision defense and the plaintiff obtains no relief.”
The case went to trial in Los Angeles in January 2023.
“Lampkin sought only money damages at trial,” the opinion says. “He did not obtain them. He sought permission to amend his complaint and pursue other forms of relief. That permission was denied. Therefore, the county, not Lampkin, is the prevailing party. …”
One of the attorneys representing the county, Calvin House, told the Southern California Record in an email that the appeals court ruling was a legal victory for the county.
“After prevailing at trial on its same-decision defense, the county was shocked when the trial judge awarded the plaintiff costs of $52,043.65 and $400,000 in attorney’s fees,” the county said in a statement. “Although it seemed obvious that a plaintiff who recovered nothing was not successful, there was no direct precedent.”
The county also expressed the hope that the court’s decision will settle how whistleblower lawsuits are handled in the future and provide guidance for other employers, the county’s statement says.
Lampkin’s attorney argued another law, the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), allowed the plaintiff to be awarded fees by a court even if a same-decision defense was accepted by a jury. But the appeals court rejected that line of reasoning, which is underpinned by a 2013 case, Harris v. City of Santa Monica.
That lawsuit, which dealt with discrimination, could rationally be extended to cover a retaliation matter such as the Lampkin case, but the justices declined to do so, saying it was not their role to make such a decision.
“We leave it to the Legislature to decide whether the law governing attorney’s fees in whistleblower cases should be the same as the law governing fees in FEHA cases, and to amend the relevant statutory provisions should they so decide,” the appeals court said.
