Brian P. Walter 

As the leader of his firm’s 65-lawyer litigation practice group, Brian P. Walter focuses on representing municipal governments, law enforcement agencies and other public entities in litigation brought by their employees. Over his more than two dozen years in practice, he has handled many class and collective actions in federal and state courts. He also has written amicus briefs representing public employer organizations for federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court.

He likes to try cases, he said, which he did the past two summers. Both of the ex-employee plaintiffs alleged they were discriminated against because of disability, and Walter won both cases.

“The next two trials I do will probably be disability discrimination as well,” he said. “Those are the cases that are going to trial.”

That’s because those cases often are harder for the defense to defeat with motions for summary judgment. “Courts, I think, have a hard time saying there’s not a disputed fact about whether the employee should have been accommodated or whether the accommodation that was offered was sufficient,” he said.

His trial last summer included such a dispute. He represented the Los Angeles DWP against a complaint by a mechanic who injured his knee. The man wanted light duty or a different position, which, Walter said, he no longer was qualified for under the latest union contract. After a three-week trial and three and a half hours of deliberation, “the jury found …that he was not able to do his job with or without reasonable accommodation.” Rosario v. L.A. City Department of Water & Power, 20STCV07947 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 28, 2020).

In the trial he won the summer before, a part-time accounting clerk for the city of Anaheim contended she was denied a full-time position after she was diagnosed with cancer. Walter and the lead trial council from the city attorney’s office put in evidence showing she’d applied for and not gotten 20 different jobs with the city before and after her health problems. Estrada v. City of Anaheim, 30-2019-01105228 (O.C. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 30, 2019).

Walter had defended Anaheim before in a high-profile race discrimination suit filed by the former city attorney after the city council asked her to resign. Suits by attorneys against their former or current employers aren’t rare, he said. He has three going right now.

Separately, he is representing Manhattan Beach against the fire chief it fired in 2020. Drum v. City of Manhattan Beach, 2:21-cv-08492 (C.D. Cal., filed Aug. 19, 2022).

Early last month, he won dismissal of litigation by an employee against Chaffee College over its earlier pandemic screening requirements. The judge granted leave to amend but also suggested in her order that the plaintiff won’t succeed, Walter said. Barrozo v. Chaffee Community College, 5:22-cv-02195 (C.D. Cal., Dec. 12, 2022).

— Don DeBenedictis