Three La Palma lawsuits: an $8.4 million employment jury verdict (appeal pending), a pending wage-and-hour case, and a pending wrongful death suit arising from a police pursuit.
Last updated: September 2026
Three lawsuits involve alleged conduct by City employees or officials, City policies, or potential municipal liability. One resulted in an $8.4 million jury verdict that the City is appealing; two others remain pending. The verdict followed a discrimination complaint that went undocumented and uninvestigated by the City. A second former employee has filed a separate lawsuit alleging unpaid wages and other employment-law violations; the City denies the allegations. And a wrongful-death suit tests the City's pursuit policy, after a police chase ended in a fatal collision; the heirs' pre-suit government claims sought $30 million.
Every entry below is drawn from the public record — sworn testimony, court filings, and the City's own Answer. Tap any entry to expand it. Documented marks a claim drawn directly from a primary record. Allegation marks a claim from a pending complaint that has not been adjudicated. Analysis marks this record's own interpretation of a disclosed fact pattern.
Inside the La Palma Police Department, Officer Ross Byer reports discriminatory treatment by his supervisor to department leadership twice (January and February 2023), including an allegation that the supervisor said he “wanted a police organization made up entirely of Korean Americans” and — most seriously — directed officers to target Black drivers for traffic stops. Sworn testimony later establishes: no formal investigation was initiated at any level, the complaint was not documented, and no witnesses were interviewed.
Records show the allegations were forwarded to senior city officials. No separate investigation followed.
Byer resigns June 1, 2023, and raises the allegations directly with City Human Resources on June 8. No subsequent investigation has been identified in the records reviewed for this site. Read the underlying witness testimony →
A separate, unrelated matter begins: at approximately 12:49 p.m., Marianne Casey is lawfully driving southbound on Moody Street and enters the intersection with La Palma Avenue on a green light. According to the operative complaint, the incident originated with a suspected shoplifting call in Fullerton; the suspect, Anthony Hanzal, fled from law enforcement, and multiple agencies — Fullerton, Buena Park, and La Palma police — became involved in the pursuit at various points.
A La Palma police sergeant is alleged to have observed Hanzal traveling on La Palma Avenue at a high rate of speed (estimated around 90 mph) and activated emergency lights and siren; Hanzal did not yield. Hanzal then entered the Moody Street intersection against a red signal and collided with Casey's vehicle, killing her.
Casey's husband and two adult children timely presented government claims to the Cities of La Palma, Fullerton, and Buena Park beginning in February 2025; all three cities rejected the claims (La Palma: March 4, 2025; Fullerton: April 3, 2025; Buena Park: June 30, 2025). Casey's heirs filed suit on July 15, 2025.
An Orange County jury returns an $8.4 million verdict (appeal pending) against the City of La Palma in Byer v. City of La Palma — $3.92 million in past noneconomic damages and $4.48 million in future noneconomic damages, per the signed verdict forms — finding the City liable for discrimination, retaliation, and failure to prevent discrimination. At trial, the City had argued Byer's emotional distress stemmed from the 2020 death of his daughter, contended damages should be capped at $35,000, and offered $75,000 to settle.
The jury awarded $8.4 million.
That amount is 112 times the $75,000 the City had offered to settle for at trial — though settlement offers reflect litigation-risk calculus, not an admission of a claim's value.
On the same date, the City Council selects Nitesh Patel as Mayor for 2026. View the signed jury verdict forms (PDF).
New City Manager Peter Kim — the former councilmember appointed unanimously by the Council six months earlier — acknowledges the verdict but declines to discuss details. The conduct at issue occurred under former City Manager McNamara, now running Whittier.
The police department is led by an interim chief. The City files an appeal on March 27.
Residents formally call for an independent external investigation of the department's complaint-handling practices, writing that the failures “are not speculative — they are established under oath,” and warning the problems may not be isolated. Los Cerritos Community News files a Public Records Act request for complaint and investigation records. The council has made no commitment to an independent investigation.
Marianne Casey's husband and two adult children filed an amended wrongful-death complaint against the cities of Buena Park, Fullerton, and La Palma, along with driver Anthony Hanzal and vehicle owner Caitlin Joy. The lawsuit alleges that Hanzal's driving caused Casey's death and that officers from the three cities were negligent in conducting the high-speed pursuit that preceded the collision.
The complaint alleges that officers had safer alternatives — including ending the pursuit and using surveillance, containment, or air support — and that discovery will determine whether those alternatives were considered. It also alleges that any city claiming pursuit immunity under Vehicle Code § 17004.7 must establish that it maintained a legally compliant pursuit policy and provided the required annual training.
The lawsuit seeks wrongful-death damages but does not specify a dollar amount. The heirs' earlier claims filed with the three cities valued their claim at $30 million.
These are allegations in a pending lawsuit, not findings of negligence. The complaint does not yet establish which agency initiated the pursuit, and no defendant's answer has been reviewed for this record.
A second employee lawsuit is filed against the City: Torres v. City of La Palma, Orange County Superior Court Case No. 30-2026-01561451-CU-OE-NJC. Misty Torres, who ran the City's Tiny Tots preschool program as a Recreation Specialist from May 2018 until February 2025, alleges the City systematically failed to pay her for hours worked.
According to the complaint, the City scheduled her for four-hour class blocks while the program's actual workload ran roughly 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.; she performed about 15 hours of unpaid work per week, which was “common knowledge and was discussed in staff meetings.”
When she told management she couldn't complete the work in her allowed hours, the City's alleged response was to cap her hours at 30 per week in mid-2024 while leaving the workload unchanged, tell her to stop working from home, and threaten that she could be fired if she stayed past her available hours — a structure the complaint says “knowingly forced” her to choose between unpaid off-the-clock work or letting the children's program fail.
The complaint further alleges the City repeatedly left her alone with twenty-four preschool-aged children for most or all of the class day in January and February 2025 — including on a day she was sick and vomiting — making legally required meal and rest breaks impossible.
She alleges the City had previously submitted a resignation on her behalf without her consent, and when she resigned in February 2025 with two weeks' notice citing the toll on her health, the City ended her employment the next day, before her stated effective date, without paying all wages due.
She seeks approximately $180,000-plus in unpaid wages, premiums, liquidated damages, and penalties, before interest and attorneys' fees. When Torres submitted a written claim in September 2025, the City rejected it as “untimely” without addressing the merits and declined her counsel's request to identify any legal authority for its position. The City rejected the claim, after which Torres filed suit.
The case moves to federal court. On June 8, 2026, Torres files a First Amended Complaint that adds a federal claim for failure to pay overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act — a change that moves the case out of Orange County Superior Court and into the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division, where it is now pending as Torres v. City of La Palma, Case No. 8:26-cv-01754-FWS-KES.
On July 14, 2026, the City — represented by City Attorney Ajit Thind's firm, Colantuono, Highsmith & Whatley — files its Answer, formally denying the case for the first time. The Answer admits several background facts: that Torres worked for the City for several years beginning on or about May 8, 2018, that she worked as a Recreation Specialist in the Tiny Tots Program, and that she attempted to submit a pre-litigation claim to the City on September 2, 2025. Beyond those admissions, the City denies essentially every substantive allegation — including the claims about unpaid hours, the capped schedule, the denied meal and rest breaks, and the circumstances of her departure.
The City raises sixteen affirmative defenses, among them that it “paid all wages due and owing”; that Torres's claims are time-barred under the FLSA's statute of limitations; that some of her work may fall under FLSA exemptions; that she failed to exhaust administrative remedies or comply with the pre-litigation claim requirement — echoing the City's earlier rejection of her claim as “untimely”; and several boilerplate equitable defenses (laches, waiver, estoppel, consent, failure to mitigate). No trial date has been set. View the City's Answer (PDF). (The Answer is the City's legal position in an active, unresolved case — not a court finding on the merits — and nothing here should be read as resolving which side's account of the underlying facts is correct.)
The City's appeal of the $8.4 million Byer verdict remains pending; no ruling has been issued and the judgment has not been resolved. Post-judgment interest may continue to accrue on the award while the appeal remains pending, subject to applicable law and the ultimate disposition of the judgment.
Cited above, at the point in the timeline each supports.