Top Plaintiffs' Verdict by Impact: Montoya v. City of Los Angeles

Former Los Angeles Police Department detective Maria Elena Montoya successfully claimed that police brass suspended her, stripped her of her detective's assignment and imposed other forms of retaliation after she took a medically ordered disability leave. McNicholas' representation of his client is part of his long campaign to end police retaliation against its officers for what top officials pejoratively term "sick, lame and lazy" behavior despite injuries they have suffered on the job.

In 2015 McNicholas said he settled two such cases for $1 million each. Earlier he won a $12.3 million failure-to-accommodate verdict for five police recruits injured during Police Academy training and then fired. "And we have a dozen of these cases pending," he added. "How many will it take? It takes the LAPD a long time to learn. So I'll keep doing what I do until things change."

The basic conflict in successful policing, he said, lies within a serious policy clash. He summed up this way the department's instruction to officers dealing with suspects: "We don't want you to shoot 'em, we want you to run 'em down and wrestle them into cuffs." But that's strenuous, physical work. "If you do your job right, you're going to get hurt. Then they come after you for getting hurt."

He said department managers are under strong pressure to keep cops on active duty despite harm they have suffered. "When I examined my client's commanding officer on the stand, I impeached her 17 times," McNicholas said. "She testified she did not decide to move Montoya out of her job until a certain date based on her performance stats," he said. "But she had signed a declaration that directly contradicted that. A bunch of jurors looked at me and shook their heads and crossed their arms. Jurors don't like to see police commanders just bald-face lie."

Such practices hurt morale and impact negatively police officers' ability to fight crime, McNicholas said. "Retaliation pins a scarlet letter on you, sends you a message," he said. "We're trying to send a message back." When the jury brought in its verdict, "My client had tears. She hugged me and thanked me for restoring her dignity. These cases are very emotional for these officers. They are a referendum on their careers."

— John Roemer