Ex-LAPD Detective Wins $2.1M in Work-Place Retaliation Suit

DIAMOND BAR, CA -- A jury today awarded $2.1 million to a former Los Angeles police detective after finding she was retaliated against when she complained about the way her supervisors treated her for taking time off to deal with an injury.

The Los Angeles Superior Court panel deliberated for a little more than a day before finding in favor of Maria Elena Montoya of Diamond Bar, who left the department and began taking her pension as a result of what happened to her, according to her lawyer, Matthew McNicholas.

While on vacation in November 2011, Montoya suffered a severe recurrence of a prior back injury she got while on duty, according to her attorneys. One of her supervisors at the Newton Division, then-Lt. Lillian Carranza, told a captain that she was concerned about Montoya's use of sick days and time taken off for being injured at work, Montoya's court papers state.

Montoya, an 18-year LAPD veteran who had been investigating juvenile sex crimes, was reassigned to handling burglary cases, considered a less prestigious assignment than her previous work, according to her court papers.

"Plaintiff believe her assignment to burglary was a downgrade, was punitive and designed to set her up for failure," Montoya's attorneys said in court papers.

Lawyers for the city maintained the assignment was necessary because of an increase in burglaries in the Newton Division.

Montoya says she was on stress leave in February 2012 when her supervisors ordered that her weapon be confiscated and her police powers suspended. The action occurred despite an internal warning from a member of the LAPD's Behavioral Science Services that the action could lead to a lawsuit, according to Montoya's attorneys.

Carranza has since been promoted to captain.

— City News Service, photo via Shutterstock