Carney R. Shegerian

Shegerian said his practice is all about helping people who have the courage to stand up to their employers.

“The core of my practice is people who did the right thing, good workers, strong employees. The people I help get into situations where it doesn’t make financial sense for the company to do the right thing, and they get their heads cut off because of it,” he said.

Last year, Shegerian won a suit for retaliation against a human resources manager fired by Passages Ventura who said she was forced to falsify documents and witnessed discrimination against other employees.

More recently, a downtown Los Angeles jury in June rewarded Shegerian’s client Rickey Moland $16.5 million, including $13.8 million in punitive damages, in a race discrimination and wrongful termination lawsuit filed against Moland’s former employer, McWane Inc., an Alabama water works manufacturer with a facility in Corona at which Moland worked.

Shegerian convinced the jury that Moland, an African-American, was an ethical and exemplary production supervisor, who was constantly subjected to racist insults and received no protection when he complained to his employer.

Shegerian is also currently representing Lynn Levitan, former counsel for Apple Inc., in a gender discrimination case. She originally sued as a “Jane Doe,” but a recent decision forced her to publicly use her full name. Levitan v. Apple Inc. et al., BC622413 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed June 1, 2016), a decision Shegerian took issue with.

“There’s no need for her name to be disclosed publicly, and now she’ll have trouble getting comparable work to what she had at Apple. We were just trying to help her be more mobile and get more employment, so getting her name out is only going to cause more damage,” he said.

Levitan claims she was fired after bringing “pervasive gender discrimination” to Apple’s attention, only to be fired a month later.

“It’s a defenseless case. They have no reason to have fired her. She’s a hardworking lawyer, and she just stood up and tried to do the right thing by speaking about the pervasive discrimination in her workplace,” he said. Through all his cases, Shegerian hopes companies will eventually be deterred from retaliation and discrimination, though politics and hardship for plaintiffs make it a tough goal.

“The unfortunate reality is that it’s so difficult for the average person to be a plaintiff,” he said. “It’s so time-consuming and distracting in their lives. I’m amazed when I see people come forward and they’re strong enough to go through with all the litigation.”

— Andy Serbe