Matthew S. McNicholas 

Matthew S. McNicholas has had a very good year suing the city of Los Angeles and its police department on behalf of aggrieved officers.

He won a $4.37 million jury verdict in May 2022 for a police lieutenant whose injuries the department wouldn’t accommodate. Lou Vince v. City of Los Angeles, BC704165 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 27, 2018)

Then in March, he won a $10.1 million jury verdict for the lieutenant’s wife, also then an LAPD lieutenant, for discriminating against her in retaliation for her husband’s lawsuit. Stacey Vince v. City of Los Angeles, 20STCV40092 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 19, 2020).

And on July 12, he won a $13 million jury verdict for gender discrimination for two male officers who were falsely accused of drawing a Hitler mustache on an unconscious drunk suspect in custody. Glick v. City of Los Angeles, 20STCV00320 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 3, 2020).

That unusual lawsuit began with a traffic accident in January 2017. Officer Alfred Garcia and his female partner responded and then asked for assistance, which brought in Officer Stephen Glick and his female partner. McNicholas said the two men did not know each other and hadn’t worked together.

When the suspect was spotted later passed out face down in a cell, paramedics took him to a hospital. Two days later, he returned to file a complaint. Apparently, sometime before he reached the hospital, his eyebrows and mustache were shaved off and drawn back on in Sharpie. The unknown prankster also drew a penis on his chest and changed his Pride tattoo to “puto,” McNicholas said.

The officers were investigated for potentially having committed assault under color of authority. But the investigators only focused on the two men, never the women officers. Much later, McNicholas learned, a top aide to the police chief had told a Police Protective League official, “This is stuff that boys do, not girls.”

However, neither man was ever alone with the suspect for more than a few seconds when not on bodycam footage. McNicholas said much better suspects might have been the paramedics, who do carry razors and Sharpies.

McNicholas may do well suing the city again this year. He is representing more than 700 LAPD undercover officers whose personal information and photos were negligently released and posted on various publicly accessible websites late last year. Apparently, when the city responded to Public Records Act requests for the roster of all sworn officers, the undercover personnel were somehow unintentionally included.

The public posting was discovered on St. Patrick’s Day this year, and McNicholas’s office began filing government claims with the city soon after. He expects to file lawsuits soon.

He called the incident “a huge error on the department’s part” and said it raises “significant safety issues” for the officers and their families.

— Don DeBenedictis