Vince v. City of Los Angeles et al

CASE NAME: Vince v. City of Los Angeles et al.

TYPE OF CASE: Discrimination; retaliation

COURT: Los Angeles County Superior Court

JUDGE(S): Judge Christopher K. Lui

PLAINTIFF LAWYERS: McNicholas & McNicholas LLP, Matthew S. McNicholas, Douglas D. Winter

DEFENSE LAWYERS: Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, Susan J. Rim, Keimer E. Raymond

One piece of evidence that helped persuade a jury to award Stacey Vince more than $10 million in damages against the LAPD for employment discrimination and retaliation was her promotion from lieutenant to captain.

Vince's husband, Lou Vince, was also a lieutenant in the department. In 2018, he sued the department and the city for disability discrimination. At one point afterward, a deputy chief told him that if he pursued the litigation, it would be "bad for your career and your wife's career."

That prediction proved correct for a while. Stacey Vince had held an important post as the adjutant to the deputy chief who served as chief of staff to the city's police chief. When the deputy chief was moved to lead the detective bureau, he asked that Vince move with him.

But when he retired in 2019, a new deputy chief arrived who had previously supervised her husband. When she complained to her new boss about discrimination against her husband, he shunned her and told her he could not work with her. Then, he had her transferred to a small unit in the training department.

There, she supervised four people, whereas previously, she had helped oversee 3,000, according to her lead attorney, Matthew McNicholas, who also represents her husband. "At the [police] academy, they didn't even have an office for her," McNicholas said. "They put her in some storage room that didn't have internet."

The transfer "was a significant adverse employment action," said Douglas Winter, her co-counsel. A commander in the detective bureau even filed an internal complaint against the new deputy chief over his retaliation against Vince, he said.

Not long after Vince's transfer, McNicholas and Winter filed her lawsuit against the city and police department. Vince v. City of Los Angeles, 20STCV40092 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 19, 2020).

Another important event leading up to both her and her husband's lawsuits was the discovery by a civilian employee of a secret file that tracked her husband's activities and problems in the department. The official maintaining the file was the man who later took over the detective bureau and shunted her off to the training post.

"In our litigation, we asked about it, and sure enough, there was a concession that such a file existed, but that it had been destroyed," Winter said.

A few months before the trial was to begin, the department promoted Vince to the rank of captain. But it was done hastily, without the usual pinning ceremony, McNicholas said. "She was called up one day to the 10th floor, and as [the chief of police] was leaving his office, he handed her the pin in front of the restroom doors on his way out."

Winter said officials contended she was promoted as part of advancing women in the department. During his closing argument, McNichols told the jury that Vince had been a woman for the entire two years she'd waited on the promotion list, Winter said.

The case is now on appeal. Attorneys for the city did not respond to a request to comment on the case.

-- Don DeBenedictis