On December 16, we obtained summary judgment on behalf of our client, Paramount Pictures Corporation, in a case brought by a former paralegal in the studio’s Business Affairs Administration department.  The plaintiff claimed discrimination, constructive discharge and wrongful termination on the basis of her race.  (The plaintiff was represented by Tom Girardi, who had previously represented Erin Brockovich.)  Yarbrough v. Paramount Pictures Corp., Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 495673.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green dismissed the claims in their entirety, finding that the plaintiff failed to meet the legal standard for a hostile work environment because she had produced no evidence that she was the victim of discrimination or harassment  based upon her race.  During the hearing, the Judge stated that the evidence showed that Paramount “bent over backwards” to accommodate the plaintiff during her cancer treatments and while she was pursuing her MBA degree.  The Judge noted that none of the alleged statements made by plaintiff’s supervisors to or about her were based on her race.  (The plaintiff theorized that her supervisor was a “closet racist.”) 

Plaintiff’s failure-to-promote claim was dismissed because she offered no admissible evidence that Paramount offered a promotion to anyone after the position was voluntarily vacated by another employee of the same race as the plaintiff.  With respect to the constructive discharge claim, Judge Green sustained Paramount’s objections to declarations submitted by two former employees as being inadmissible hearsay and irrelevant evidence, and he noted that many places “might not be the nicest places to work,” but that does not mean there was any actionable conduct or that the plaintiff had been constructively discharged.  Finally, the wrongful termination claim was found to be superfluous and was similarly dismissed.  

Anthony J. Oncidi and Julia Brodsky represented Paramount Pictures in this matter, with assistance from paralegals Robert Linton, Olia Golinder, and Yena Kim.

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.