Top Defense Verdict: Teasley v. Space Explorations Technologies Corp.

Michael W. Parks, at Schimmel & Parks APLC, said that he lost an $8 million gender discrimination and sexual harassment case against Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. when defense attorney Lynne C. Hermle, partner at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, showed that muscle video of client Zhoei M. Teasley during closing arguments.

"It was a really inflammatory piece of evidence," Parks said of a video in which a buff plaintiff flexes and dances at Venice Beach amid cheers. "The view of her was almost cartoonish."

Parks has moved for a new trial after a downtown Los Angeles jury in October delivered a defense victory against Teasley, a company welder who said that a co-worker's incessant harassment traumatized her. Teasley contended that SpaceX turned a blind eye to physical and verbal abuse, let other co-workers taunt Teasley when she returned after a leave of absence, and kept the plaintiff from returning to work.

As for the muscle display, Teasley testified that she began a weightlifting program under pressure from her father. She said that the weightlifting was to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder, but the muscle video arguably showed her more capable than she presented to the jury.

It's unclear whether the video made the difference in a weeklong trial, but it was a core part of Hermle's questioning of the plaintiff's credibility. After going with Fox Rothschild LLP partner Alexander Hernaez for most of the case, SpaceX made Hermle lead counsel shortly before the matter went to a jury.

Riechert

During closing arguments in Teasley, Hermle fixated on Teasley radically changing her opinions on people from close friends to sworn enemies, and the plaintiff's history of emotional instability. Teasley, Hermle told the jury, was a "rigid, compulsive perfectionist" who sees the world in black and white.

Hermle declined comment for this profile, citing confidentiality provisions with her client.

? Matthew Blake