By Daniel Siegal
Law360, Los Angeles (December 18, 2015, 6:58 PM ET) -- Counsel for a former NBC investigative journalist urged a California jury Friday to award him $5.5 million for his alleged age-based firing from NBC's Los Angeles station, saying NBC was “despicable” in trumping up a false record of insubordination to justify the firing.
As the third week in the Los Angeles jury trial came to a close, 72-year-old Frank Snepp's attorney Ames Smith of Howarth & Smith told the jury that the case is “much bigger than Frank Snepp,” saying that NBCUniversal Media LLC and its Los Angeles station KNBC-TV had engaged in intentional, systemic age discrimination, and played “hide the ball” with the evidence to try and duck responsibility.
Smith argued that NBC had refused to straightforwardly rebut Snepp's claims of age discrimination and wrongful termination, instead putting on a case composed of “days and days and days of misdirection and red herrings,” including Snepp's dating life.
NBC was duplicitous both in arguing the case and in firing Snepp, Smith argued, saying that the evidence had shown the company had backdated a negative performance review in order to falsely support its trumped-up claims that Snepp was fired for failing to perform his job duties, calling the action “dishonest, fraud, despicable.”
That despicable behavior left Snepp out of work and traumatized him about the loss of his “life's purpose,” Smith said in urging the jury to award $5,558,400 in economic and noneconomic damages. Smith also asked the jury to find that Snepp's bosses acted with malice — which would warrant punitive damages.
Snepp filed the suit in October 2013, claiming he was a victim of the station's efforts to appeal to a younger demographic when he was fired in October 2012 at age 69.
Snepp, who was a chief intelligence analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, has decades of television news experience under his belt. He was hired by NBC in 2005 at age 61 and one year later earned the Peabody Award for a four-part series that investigated environmental and safety hazards at a commercial and residential development in southwest Los Angeles.
The trial has focused on NBC's move in 2009 to a new business model focused on its online content — which Snepp's attorneys have argued led to the station to begin marginalizing him and other older employees. After longtime news director Bob Long retired in August 2010, his replacement, Vickie Burns, and other managers immediately moved to get rid of older employees or physically separate them in the newsroom, Snepp has said.
“It was open season on older employees once Mr. Long left,” Smith said. “It's systemic, it's pervasive and it's hostile to these older employees.”
During NBC's closing arguments, however, the network's attorney Bart Williams of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP told the jury that the actual evidence showed that Snepp was treated fairly, and was fired because he refused to embrace the new position — content producer — he was hired to do after the 2009 newsroom reorganization.
Williams pointed out that Snepp was first hired by the station as a freelancer at age 61, was made a staffer at age 62 and was rehired during the reorganization at age 66 — at a time when the station was hit with mass layoffs, and every laid-off employee was younger than Snepp.
Williams urged the jury to consider the credibility of Snepp's testimony, and that of the fellow former colleagues he had called to the stand to testify that they heard Burns and other managers make disparaging comments about Snepp's age, pointing out an “avalanche” of examples of Snepp and others changing their testimony from their sworn declarations or depositions to what they said in court.
Williams closed his argument by telling the jury that believing Snepp's side of the story required leaving reality, and instead joining a world where employees can ignore the direct commands of their supervisors and ignore their job duties.
“Mr. Snepp's world should be brought in line with the real world, where people listen to their bosses and adapt to change,” he said.
Snepp is represented by Suzelle Smith, Don Howarth, Jessica C. Walsh and Ames Smith of Howarth & Smith.
NBC is represented by Bart H. Williams, Manuel F. Cachan, Margaret G. Maraschino and Erin J. Cox of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP.
The case is Frank W. Snepp v. NBCUniversal Media LLC et al., case number BC523279, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
--Editing by Aaron Pelc.
Law360, Los Angeles (December 18, 2015, 6:58 PM ET) -- Counsel for a former NBC investigative journalist urged a California jury Friday to award him $5.5 million for his alleged age-based firing from NBC's Los Angeles station, saying NBC was “despicable” in trumping up a false record of insubordination to justify the firing.
As the third week in the Los Angeles jury trial came to a close, 72-year-old Frank Snepp's attorney Ames Smith of Howarth & Smith told the jury that the case is “much bigger than Frank Snepp,” saying that NBCUniversal Media LLC and its Los Angeles station KNBC-TV had engaged in intentional, systemic age discrimination, and played “hide the ball” with the evidence to try and duck responsibility.
Smith argued that NBC had refused to straightforwardly rebut Snepp's claims of age discrimination and wrongful termination, instead putting on a case composed of “days and days and days of misdirection and red herrings,” including Snepp's dating life.
NBC was duplicitous both in arguing the case and in firing Snepp, Smith argued, saying that the evidence had shown the company had backdated a negative performance review in order to falsely support its trumped-up claims that Snepp was fired for failing to perform his job duties, calling the action “dishonest, fraud, despicable.”
That despicable behavior left Snepp out of work and traumatized him about the loss of his “life's purpose,” Smith said in urging the jury to award $5,558,400 in economic and noneconomic damages. Smith also asked the jury to find that Snepp's bosses acted with malice — which would warrant punitive damages.
Snepp filed the suit in October 2013, claiming he was a victim of the station's efforts to appeal to a younger demographic when he was fired in October 2012 at age 69.
Snepp, who was a chief intelligence analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, has decades of television news experience under his belt. He was hired by NBC in 2005 at age 61 and one year later earned the Peabody Award for a four-part series that investigated environmental and safety hazards at a commercial and residential development in southwest Los Angeles.
The trial has focused on NBC's move in 2009 to a new business model focused on its online content — which Snepp's attorneys have argued led to the station to begin marginalizing him and other older employees. After longtime news director Bob Long retired in August 2010, his replacement, Vickie Burns, and other managers immediately moved to get rid of older employees or physically separate them in the newsroom, Snepp has said.
“It was open season on older employees once Mr. Long left,” Smith said. “It's systemic, it's pervasive and it's hostile to these older employees.”
During NBC's closing arguments, however, the network's attorney Bart Williams of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP told the jury that the actual evidence showed that Snepp was treated fairly, and was fired because he refused to embrace the new position — content producer — he was hired to do after the 2009 newsroom reorganization.
Williams pointed out that Snepp was first hired by the station as a freelancer at age 61, was made a staffer at age 62 and was rehired during the reorganization at age 66 — at a time when the station was hit with mass layoffs, and every laid-off employee was younger than Snepp.
Williams urged the jury to consider the credibility of Snepp's testimony, and that of the fellow former colleagues he had called to the stand to testify that they heard Burns and other managers make disparaging comments about Snepp's age, pointing out an “avalanche” of examples of Snepp and others changing their testimony from their sworn declarations or depositions to what they said in court.
Williams closed his argument by telling the jury that believing Snepp's side of the story required leaving reality, and instead joining a world where employees can ignore the direct commands of their supervisors and ignore their job duties.
“Mr. Snepp's world should be brought in line with the real world, where people listen to their bosses and adapt to change,” he said.
Snepp is represented by Suzelle Smith, Don Howarth, Jessica C. Walsh and Ames Smith of Howarth & Smith.
NBC is represented by Bart H. Williams, Manuel F. Cachan, Margaret G. Maraschino and Erin J. Cox of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP.
The case is Frank W. Snepp v. NBCUniversal Media LLC et al., case number BC523279, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
--Editing by Aaron Pelc.
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