Anthony Nguyen


Shegerian & Associates • Los Angeles


Anthony Nguyen credits much of his recent success representing aggrieved employees in trial to the other talented attorneys in the Shegerian law firm. "There's no way I could get these type of results without having really, really good partners who tried these cases with me," he said. "They've always been instrumental in all these verdicts."


By these verdicts, Nguyen means the four multimillion-dollar jury verdicts he achieved in the last year and a half. All told, he won more than $19 million in awards for four individual clients between March and November 2023.


In the first of the trials, he and his team represented a former manager at a business consulting firm who was given a choice between being demoted or resigning after he told his superiors that he had multiple sclerosis, Nguyen said. The jury awarded him $2.7 million in March, and the case has since been resolved. Spillane v. Partners in Leadership, 37-2018-00009148 (S.D. Super. Ct., filed Feb. 22, 2018).


Nguyen said he believes the real reason for the threatened demotion was that the MS caused the man to develop a slight stutter. "My suspicion ... was that they had issue with him presenting in that way in front of clients."


Two months later, Nguyen won $4.1 million for the wrongful termination of a former chief with the West Covina fire department who was ousted following an eight-month medical leave. He had been with the department for nearly 30 years. The case is on appeal.


It was "a pretty difficult case," Nguyen said, because the chief had been terminated "after receiving a vote of no confidence [from] 69 of 70 of his firefighters." But that vote and other questionable actions were the result of politics as the firefighter association and the city negotiated a new labor contract, he said.


Then, in June, Nguyen won $6.3 million for an IT director who was terminated as part of a 23-person pandemic-related layoff after 22 years with the company. The judgment has been satisfied. Contreras v. Kelly Pipe Co., LLC, 21STCV17933 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 12, 2021).


The judge only allowed each side six and a half hours of trial time and Nguyen and his colleagues showed that the firing actually related to the plaintiff's age and conflicts with his direct supervisor. "We did this in a very truncated, straight to the point fashion, which actually worked out to our surprise and obviously to the benefit of our client, which made it sort of fun to be honest," Nguyen said.


And finally, in November, he and colleagues won $6.1 million for a UCLA food services manager who was accused of inventory fraud and fired while out on medical leave. Nguyen argued that the department had no systems or training regarding inventory records and that the client would have gained nothing by committing any alleged fraud. The case is on appeal. Yosifi v. The Regents, BC724191 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 4, 2018).