A former State Bar public information officer sued his ex-employer Monday, alleging he lost his job in retaliation for his close association with a former State Bar executive who himself maintained he was terminated for exposing ethical breaches within the agency responsible for the oversight of the state’s attorneys.
Thomas Layton filed the wrongful termination suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. He is seeking unspecified damages.
Layton’s former boss, Joseph Dunn, was named the State Bar’s executive director in September 2010 and was given a second three-year term in 2013 before being fired in November 2014, according to a separate complaint Dunn filed that was later sent to arbitration by a judge.
Dunn, a former state senator from Orange County, contended that he ruffled feathers when he reported that under State Bar Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim’s direction, internal reports were altered to remove cases from the statutory backlog.
Kim’s alleged misconduct was not isolated, but instead “shockingly rampant,” according to Dunn’s court papers.
After Kim found out about Dunn’s concerns regarding her performance, she filed a complaint against him in an attempt to preserve her position, Dunn’s suit alleges.
“Not content to stop her retribution with Mr. Dunn, however, Ms. Kim and the other defendants in this matter have since retaliated against persons with ties to Mr. Dunn, including … the plaintiff in this case,” Layton’s suit alleges.
After Layton filed a grievance, he was put “squarely in their cross- hairs” as Kim and others “set about destroying his career with the State Bar,” his suit states.
Layton worked as a State Bar investigator from 1999 to 2013 and was praised internally for his work, according to the suit. He says he was later hired by Dunn as a public information officer.
Kim targeted Layton because of his ties with Dunn, and he was laid off in November, according to his court papers. His complaint further alleges the State Bar instituted a hiring freeze to prevent him from returning to the agency in another position.
–City News Service