Anastasia Mazzella

Litigation

Los Angeles

Anastasia K. Mazzella, the first woman to become a Kabateck LLP partner, has taken on challenging assignments such as investigating the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's billing scandal and holding American Airlines accountable for sickening flight attendants required to wear toxic uniforms.

The seasoned litigator has been with the firm for more than a decade, after graduating from Loyola Law School -- where she was editor in chief of the Loyola Law Review -- and externing for U.S. District Judge S. James Otero.

"I started at Loyola at age 32, and going back to school older made me more of a risk-taker," Mazzella said. After trying different aspects of the law and learning from Otero, she settled on law and motion work plus appeals.

"It solidified for me that legal writing is my forte," she said.

Firm founder Brian S. Kabateck hired Mazzella as an intake attorney, then gave her more and more assignments, she said. Then, in 2019, the firm was retained to investigate fraud among the lawyers who sued the Los Angeles water department over a billing fiasco and then conspired in a collusive $67 million settlement. Jones et al. v. City of Los Angeles et al., BC577267 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 1, 2015).

"It was a unique situation, and I've done more law and motion and appellate work there than on any other case," Mazzella said. "It finally came down to a matter of going after the former lawyers involved in the case to disgorge their fees."

Mazzella and Kabateck's investigation discovered that Ohio-based attorney Jack Landskroner, his law partners, and local liaison counsel, Michael J. Libman, were awarded millions of dollars in ill-gotten attorneys' fees based on their lies and omissions to the court as they settled the class action filed by their client, ratepayer Antwon Jones, without conducting discovery. The lawyers colluded with the city's special counsel, Paul O. Paradis, to use the Jones suit to settle all water department billing claims on the city's desired terms.

"They fought us every step of the way," Mazzella said. She has so far recovered nearly $3 million. Her work on the case is ongoing as she monitors the city's compliance with a new settlement agreement and continues to enforce disgorgement judgments.

In a toxic uniform lawsuit on behalf of American Airlines workers sickened by formaldehyde applied to keep cotton blouses from wrinkling, Mazzella and co-counsel at Balaban & Spielberger LLP won a $1.08 million jury award for four bellwether plaintiffs and settled six individual cases for more than $1 million. Mazzella's team represents an additional 420 clients; another set of bellwether cases is set for trial later this year. Poole et al. v. Twin Hill Acquisition Co. et al., RG17876798 (Alameda Co. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 27, 2017).

The outcome was a Daily Journal Top Verdict of 2023.

-- John Roemer