Jesse A. Cripps

Cripps enjoys his reputation as an outside-the-box strategizer in the defense-side labor and employment field, where he handles a full range of litigation matters both at trial and on appeal.

“My clients have been very kind in how they describe my strengths as a creative thinker,” the Gibson Dunn partner said, “and I take great pride in that and in encouraging my team to do it too. We take no cookie-cutter approach. We handle assignments in difficult cases that other firms may not take, and creativity is a key value-add for us.”

In July 2020 Cripps and colleagues secured a win for a wholly owned subsidiary of major client Northrop Grumman Corp. called Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. A former NGSC employee had filed a Private Attorneys General Act claim alleging that he and other employees were denied proper overtime wages, meal and rest breaks, waiting time wages and itemized wage statements. Roman v. Northrop Grumman Corp., BC647361 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 18, 2017).

The complaint named the parent company but not NGSC. Later, the plaintiff sought to add NGSC as a Doe defendant—a common litigation move—but Cripps saw an opportunity and opposed the amendment, filed a motion to dismiss and moved to quash the service of summons against NGSC.

He argued that the one-year PAGA statute of limitations had expired and that the plaintiff could not avoid this through the use of a Doe amendment because he knew the identity of his employer at all relevant times. The court granted the motion to quash service of summons and dismissed NGSC from the case, leading the plaintiff to dismiss the matter.

“We often find that plaintiffs go after the marquee name to the exclusion of others because they think that’s where the power is,” Cripps said. “It looked to be a conscious decision to leave NGSC off the original complaint. But we saw and seized an opportunity when it presented itself.”

Cripps won on summary judgment and successfully defended the win on appeal when a former temporary employee sued his employer, a pharmaceutical company, for prohibited religious bias in firing him. The worker’s supervisor protested his request to take Good Friday off after the worker had been on the job for a week, but granted the request. The company fired him for making disrespectful comments about the situation. A state appellate panel affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment. De Martin v. La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co., D075026 (4th DCA, op. filed Aug. 17, 2020).

“I took the plaintiff’s deposition and it was clear he had an ax to grind,” Cripps said. “It became very personal between him and those involved in his termination. We explained to him and his counsel that the case was headed for dismissal, but they persisted and then appealed.”

Before the panel Cripps said it was clear the argument was going his way, so he didn’t push it. “When you’re winning, the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut.”

— John Roemer