Toni J. Jaramilla


Toni Jaramilla • Los Angeles


Toni Jaramilla has represented plaintiffs in employment litigation since she opened her own practice 30 years ago soon after law school. She was drawn to the field by the experiences of her father, an immigrant from the Philippines, who could only find work as a farm laborer upon being honorably discharged from the Navy.


She began taking on civil rights and police misconduct cases in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Noting that she had been an activist as an UCLA undergrad, Jaramilla said the new field "was a natural expansion of my employment law practice."


Just the next year, she represented a Black man who had been pulled out of his car for no obvious reason and then severely beaten by six sheriff deputies. Last year, the county settled his lawsuit for $4.75 million. It is believed to be the largest settlement for a single plaintiff, non-lethal excessive force case in 2023, Jaramilla said. Bailey v. County of Los Angeles, 2:21-cv-05017 (C.D. Cal., filed June 21, 2021).


Still, employment matters make up about 90% of her practice, she said.


Jaramilla currently represents 51 former workers in arbitration against the Hawaiian Gardens Casino for age discrimination. They were let go in 2020 for the pandemic shutdown, but when the casino reopened in 2021, the older workers were not rehired, although some had worked there for two decades.


"There was a significant impact on age," Jaramilla said. "In fact, one of the questions on the application was, 'Are you 40 years old or older?' That was to me a dead giveaway." The cases are being resolved slowly. "We're not just taking chump change," she said.


In her most high-profile and unusual employment case, Jaramilla and co-counsel Wendy Musell won $1.2 million from the U.S. Justice Department, plus $235,000 in fees and costs, in a lawsuit accusing Scott D. Laurent, the assistant chief immigration judge in Los Angeles, of sexual harassment and failure to accommodate. Escoto v. Garland, 2:23-cv-03340 (C.D. Cal., filed May 2, 2023).


The plaintiff had been the judge's staff assistant. Although she was married to a woman, the judge sometimes would tell her, "Sit on my lap and I'll make you straight." The lawsuit also alleged that the judge would touch the plaintiff, comment on the appearance of lawyers in his court and talk about his affairs. "It was very salacious," Jaramilla said.


When the woman became emotionally distraught and asked to be transferred from his court as an accommodation, she was told she needed his permission. Then, when Jaramilla took on the case, "they doubled down and terminated her," she said.


The litigation initially was very contentious. But once the attorneys started seeking discovery of the judge's cell phone records and email, the defense quickly agreed to a stipulated judgment, she said.


"I'm particularly proud of it because ... it was really a Goliath and David story."