Carol M. Gillam

Plaintiffs' Employment, Whistleblower Litigation

Los Angeles

Ever since she left the U.S. attorney's office 30 years ago, Carol Gillam has represented employees, particularly women, suing their employers. After three decades of success, she now gets to pick and choose what cases she accepts.

"I can primarily focus on representing individual plaintiffs in employment law cases, particularly in whistleblower retaliation cases of all different kinds, as well as sexual harassment cases," she said. "My passion is for these discrimination retaliation cases."

At this stage in her career, Gillam says, she can avoid "cookie-cutter cases" in favor of cases that "push the envelope a little bit" and "ones where there are maybe unsettled issues or different strategies that will help my clients achieve justice."

One federal whistleblower case she brought has been going on for close to nine years. For five of those years, Gillam also defended the same client, Charles Erhart, in a responsive suit by the man's former boss.

Erhart was an internal auditor with what is now the online-only Axos Bank. He was fired after he blew the whistle on what he believed were illegal activities. Gillam filed suit for him in 2015, and seven years later, almost to the day, a jury awarded him $1.5 million for defamation and violation of state and federal whistleblower protections. The bank has appealed. Erhart v. BofI Holding, Inc., 3:15-cv-02287 (S.D. Cal., filed Oct. 13, 2015).

But midway through, in 2017, the bank's president and CEO sued Gillam's client under two Penal Code sections for invasion of privacy and receiving stolen property, pointing to Erhart's taking of bank documents. In November 2021, a jury awarded the CEO $1,502 in damages, but the court added on almost $66,000 in costs and $1.3 million in fees.

Gillam appealed and won a published decision holding that the two criminal statutes did not apply in this case. Garrabrants v. Erhart, 98 Cal.App.5th 486 (Cal. App. 4th, dec'd. Dec. 18, 2023).

"It's the first of its kind," she said about the decision. It shows "that you cannot grab criminal statutes to use ... against would be whistleblowers."

In another high-profile case, Gillam represents three female doctors and professors of medicine in a pair of lawsuits alleging that Harbor-UCLA Medical Center management ignored years of complaints of sexual harassment, retaliation and discriminatory behavior by the former chief of the orthopedics department. The suit claims the chief sometimes wore a gun in the operating room, sexually assaulted anesthetized patients and engaged in blatant sexism and racism, among other allegations.

After the lawsuit became public, the hospital lost its accreditation temporarily, Gillam said. The cases are set for trial next June. Hsu v. County of Los Angeles, 23STCV21134 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 31, 2023).

"Plenty of surgeons think they are God," Gillam said. "But this guy ... felt like he could do whatever the heck he wanted."

-- Don DeBenedictis