Representative Results

The following are illustrative examples of the types of cases and outcomes that Kim assisted in handling or attaining for past clients over the years. Lawyers cannot guarantee results. All results are case-specific and depend on the true facts of the case.

Employment

Assisted in attaining a $1 million settlement for an employee who faced racial and disability discrimination in addition to retaliation after reporting incidents through the appropriate channels at their place of employment. This successful result was achieved only after reviewing in excess of 60 thousand pages of unorganized documents that were dumped by the multiple defendants in hopes to overwhelm the attorneys, and after over a dozen depositions were conducted, to establish that the employer was systematically denying the African American client with the same opportunities for shift assignments, machine assignments, partner assignments, overtime, and reasonable accommodations, as their Caucasian counterparts.

Attained a $130,000 pre-litigation settlement in mediation for a former employee of a non-profit 501(c)(3) who was retaliated against for whistleblowing on legal violations, including for alleged Medicare fraud, by the employer, and presented sex and disability based discrimination claims based on the employer characterizing her as “too emotional”.

Attained $250,000 settlement for an officer in law enforcement subjected to sexual harassment, and failure to prevent harassment.

Attained $93,250 settlement for lower hourly pay African American employee of a national company after six months on the job, after being disparately assigned harder work than the Hispanic employees in the same department, being subjected to racial slurs, and unfairly written up after making complaints of racial discrimination and harassment.

Attained a settlement less than three months after the employer responded to the lawsuit. Kim represented a behavioral consultant who worked for a care home facility. The employee requested reimbursement of personal expenses that she incurred during the covid pandemic and the time afterwards, when she was forced to rely heavily on the usage of her personal cell phone, computer, home office, and vehicle. Days after the employee made the request for reimbursement, the employer cut her hours by reassigning her cases to other consultants. Less than two weeks after the employee made the request, the employer suddenly issued a scathing written reprimand. All the issues complained about had never been a problem for almost 10 years of employment. The employee regularly received praise for her work and raises in pay. Two weeks after the employee requested reimbursement, she was terminated for being “inefficient” and “insubordinate”. The employee filed suit, alleging that the employer failed to reimburse the necessary personal expenses, and multiple bases of retaliation and wrongful termination. The employee also asserted a tort claim for interfering with her prospective economic relations, arising from the employer’s attempt to prohibit any clients from working with the employee after her employment was terminated.

Attained a settlement less than eight months after filing suit. Kim represented a faithful employee of an auto dealership for 20 years, who was promoted throughout the years to a shop foreman from a mechanic. The employee filed a lawsuit alleging a failure to provide reasonable accommodations of his disabilities, and unlawful retaliation. While working there, the employee was involved in a non-work related accident. At first, he was informally accommodated by his supervisor. The employer then changed the entire system of how the mechanics worked, and the employee’s accommodations were taken away without an interactive process. Later on, the employee reported several technicians that he supervised for stealing a customer’s car to take a lunch break. The very next day, one of the technicians made a complaint to HR that the employee was treating the technicians unfairly, showing them explicit content, and being mean to them. The employer should have suspected the allegations were false and meant to get “back at him” for reporting the technician for stealing a customer’s car. In fact, the employer’s own procedures of operation prevented the “unfairness” that the technician complained about, so the employer should have investigated the truth of the technician’s allegations. The employer was also aware the employee was grieving his recently deceased wife, who had unexpectedly and recently passed away, so it unlikely he was watching and sharing explicit content at work. Rather than investigate any of the technician’s allegations, the employer just terminated the dedicated employee a week after the technician made his false complaints.

Attained a settlement less than five months after the employer responded to the lawsuit. Kim represented an employee of a grocery store for multiple allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. The employee was a manager and heard from an employee that another manager was sexually harassing the employee. After Kim’s client reported this to HR, he suddenly became the target of ongoing racist remarks and harassment by the CEO. This unlawful conduct continued for three months, before he was suddenly terminated.

Attained a pre-litigation settlement for a former employee of a bank who was retaliated against after making a complaint about an executive making racist remarks. After the complaint was made, the employee was suddenly tasked with additional work not originally part of his duties or assigned to his colleagues. The additional work made it difficult for the employee to perform his normal tasks, and his bonuses were tied to his performance metrics. He was then terminated for not meeting his metrics, contrary to his performance reviews.

Business Litigation

Complete defense judgment for the clients after taking over a case just one month before trial. The clients were an elderly man and his family trust, who were the landlords of commercial property. The tenants were properly evicted after the tenants (who habitually entered into leases with no intent to pay), tried to take advantage of the COVID pandemic as an excuse to refuse to pay rent to the elderly man. Once they were evicted, the tenants sued the clients for multiple claims, including conversion, intentional interference, punitive damages, and infliction of emotional distress, for the alleged failure to permit the tenants to retrieve their property from the premises after the eviction. Kim immediately assessed the case and assisted in trial preparations rather than seeking to delay trial. After the plaintiffs presented their case at trial, Kim successfully briefed a motion for nonsuit. The client obtained a complete bench judgment in their favor as to the entire complaint without even presenting a defense. Although Kim typically represents plaintiffs, the advantage when his clients are being sued is that Kim is familiar with what the plaintiffs need to establish or prove at trial to prevail.

Assisted in attaining a $2,718,000 jury verdict, including 50-percent ownership of business and punitive damages, against client’s former partners who 1) converted nonprofit mutual benefit corporation to a for-profit corporation, 2) took 100 percent of the stock in violation of the parties’ agreement, and 3) wrongfully relocated adult-use dispensary license to new location. Prior to trial, defendants’ highest offer was $200,000 and no ownership. Jury awarded only $25,000 less than the damages we sought. After trial, jurors expressed that Kim’s PowerPoint that was shown during closing arguments allowed the jurors to understand the complex contract breaches at issue and was the deciding factor in the favorable outcome.

Assisted in recovering payments exceeding $3.4 million after extensive litigation for the balance of the purchase price for the sale of a business.

Assisted in attaining a $385,000 settlement for breach of a wholesale textile (clothing) contract for the manufacturer client when the wholesaler for a national retailer failed to pay for the goods, and even after wholesaler filed a cross complaint for damages.

Assisted in attaining a $657,545 bench judgment against a real estate agent who, while acting as project manager for real estate development, misappropriated the client’s funds entrusted to her for the project and instead used the funds for personal use. Kim worked to ensure that numerous forensic accounting methods and subpoenas were employed to uncover the full breadth of fraud and conversion. Judgment was for 100 percent of the amount sought.

During the middle of the COVID pandemic when the lockdown was in place, Kim successfully obtained a complete bench judgment in favor of the client after conducting a virtual trial by Zoom. The client was sued by the plaintiff that claimed that he owned multiple Rolex watches pursuant to multiple written contracts. After filing a cross-complaint alleging that the watches actually belonged to the client, Kim successfully proved that the parties did not have any enforceable contracts, and that the written contracts shown by the plaintiff were forged. The judgment was 100 percent of the outcome sought by the client.

Assisted in attaining a $398,325.18 bench judgment in favor of the client by enforcing a written promissory note. The total judgment was for 100% of the damages sought of $253,065, and $145,260.18 in prejudgment interest.

Assisted in attaining a $125,000 default judgment against an attorney for the unpaid balance of a loan to, and battery against, the client. The default judgment was obtained after successfully seeking terminating sanctions against the defendant for multiple violations of court orders for not complying with discovery, getting the defendant’s answer to the complaint stricken, and a default entered.

Real Estate Litigation

Kim represented a married couple who claimed they were tricked into signing a deed transferring their family home to the husband’s sister. The couple found out they were tricked almost a decade later, when the sister suddenly tried to evict the couple and listed the property for sale. Attained a settlement after the couple filed suit against the original co-signers and joint tenants, the sister, and the bank holding a refinance mortgage, seeking to quiet title, and alleging multiple torts including conspiracy, fraud, and conversion.

Assisted in attaining a $300,000 settlement for lost profits, after filing suit to enforce a purchase agreement when the seller decided to back out of the deal during escrow because the value of the property had gone up since entering into an agreement to sell the property. After a lawsuit was filed, the property was encumbered with a lis pendens. The case went into arbitration and settled after Kim discovered and exposed a fraudulent scheme being run by the seller.

Assisted property owners whose use of a walking path through their neighbor’s property was blocked off when the neighbor erected a fence. After defeating the neighbor’s motion for summary adjudication in a case alleging implied pedestrian easement, the clients successfully obtained a settlement for a pedestrian easement that runs with the land in perpetuity. The clients received an express written, recorded, easement, as well as a significant monetary settlement for temporary loss of use of easement.

After a business partnership to purchase and flip a property went sour, the clients were sued by their former partners for over a dozen claims, including fraud and theft of partnership funds. Kim assisted in attaining a settlement that forced the plaintiffs to sell their interest in the property to the clients at a significant discount after filing a cross-complaint and extensive discovery showed the plaintiffs’ claims were unsubstantiated.

Assisted in obtaining a settlement to jointly sell real property co-owned by family members after the client filed a complaint for partition. The settlement agreement was reached immediately after Kim successfully obtained a court order deeming material facts to be admitted by the defendants and then filed a motion for summary judgment based on those admissions.