Lampkin v. County of Los Angeles, 2025 WL 1874669 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025)

D’Andre Lampkin, a deputy in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, investigated a man whom he believed was soliciting a sex worker. (In reality, the suspect was one of Lampkin’s retired law enforcement colleagues having lunch with his girlfriend.) Following an altercation between Lampkin and the suspect, Lampkin reported the incident to his supervisor. Thereafter, Lampkin experienced a series of allegedly retaliatory actions by others in the Sheriff’s Department and sued the County under the whistleblower statute, Cal. Lab. Code § 1102.5. The statute provides an employer with an affirmative defense that it would have made the same decisions and taken the same actions “for legitimate, independent reasons” (the “same-decision” defense).

While the jury found that Lampkin had proven the required elements of a whistleblower claim, it also found that the County successfully met its burden to establish the same-decision defense. Accordingly, the jury awarded Lampkin (who sought only money damages at trial) zero dollars in damages. Notwithstanding the verdict, the trial court awarded Lampkin $450,000 in attorney’s fees and costs for having “successfully” proven a whistleblower claim under Section 1102.5. In this opinion, the Court of Appeal reversed the award of fees and costs, finding that by definition Lampkin had not been “successful”—despite proving the elements of his claim—because the County prevailed on its same-decision affirmative defense and the jury accordingly awarded him zero damages. See also Cash v. County of Los Angeles, 111 Cal. App. 5th 741 (2025) (prevailing plaintiff’s attorney’s fee award was properly reduced by 30 percent across-the-board based on “unreasonable padding,” and “unnecessary” and “duplicative work” – federal “heightened scrutiny” standard for fee reductions is inapplicable under California law); Mooney v. Roller Bearing Co. of Am., 138 F.4th 1349 (9th Cir. 2025) (district court has discretion to award prejudgment interest based on a fluctuating federal rate to prevailing plaintiff in case involving successful state and federal FMLA-related claims).