The Los Angeles Times dragged its own dying columnist, T.J. Simers, through a 9-year legal war over discrimination

The Human Story: A Fight He Wouldn’t Live to Finish

For nearly a decade, T.J. Simers fought for his dignity. Once a well-known and controversial sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, his career was upended in 2013 when the paper demoted him to a senior reporter role. Believing the move was a direct result of his age and a recent disability, Simers sued the media giant for what he saw as a constructive termination.

This was a fight that would outlast Simers himself. Before the final appeals were settled, T.J. Simers passed away, leaving his wife and executor, Virginia Simers, to see the grueling battle to its end.

The Corporate Playbook: Weaponizing the Legal System

The Los Angeles Times’ strategy was clear: concede nothing and fight everything. Instead of seeking a swift resolution for the harm it was found to have caused, the company leveraged its immense resources to drag the case through the mud of legal procedure.

The battle spanned three separate jury trials and a contentious appeal. After the first trial, a jury found The Times liable for both discrimination and for constructively terminating Simers, awarding him over $7 million in damages. But a corporation does not have to accept a jury’s verdict. The Times successfully convinced a judge to throw out the constructive termination claim entirely.

This forced a second trial focused solely on the emotional and non-economic harm Simers suffered. That jury, after hearing the evidence of his ordeal, awarded him a staggering $15.4 million. But once again, this verdict was erased. The Times successfully argued for a new trial, claiming the award was “excessive” and that Simers’s lawyer had engaged in “misconduct” by improperly suggesting the jury consider the company’s vast wealth. The message was clear: corporate assets are to be shielded at all costs, and human suffering is merely a number to be negotiated down.

A Cascade of Consequences: The Real-World Impact

The Human Toll of a Legal Siege

The nine-year ordeal represents a profound form of institutional violence. The legal system, intended to provide recourse, was twisted into a mechanism of prolonged suffering. The emotional distress at the heart of the lawsuit was an active, ongoing injury inflicted by years of courtroom battles, appeals, and uncertainty.

While Simers did not live to see the final outcome, the toll on his life is undeniable. The fight for his professional dignity consumed the final years of his life, a testament to the human cost of corporate intransigence.

Economic Disparity as a Weapon

The case exposes the grotesque imbalance of power in legal disputes between individuals and corporations. To secure a final verdict of $1.25 million, Simers’s legal team claimed to have invested time valued at over $7.8 million, ultimately requesting fees of more than $15.5 million with multipliers.

This is the reality of seeking justice in America: it is a luxury that costs millions, a price no ordinary citizen can afford. Corporations know this. Their ability to spend endlessly on legal fees is an offensive weapon designed to make accountability so financially ruinous that few dare to pursue it.

A System Designed for This: Profit, Power, and Dehumanization

(Analysis) The story of T.J. Simers is a feature of a neoliberal economic system that treats human beings as disposable assets on a balance sheet. In this worldview, an aging, disabled, and likely higher-paid employee like Simers represents a liability to be managed or, if necessary, eliminated.

The legal system, rather than checking this corporate power, often enables it. The court’s decision to nullify the $15.4 million verdict is a textbook example of this dynamic. The finding that it was “misconduct” for Simers’s counsel to mention the defendant’s wealth reinforces a foundational principle of capitalist justice: the sanctity of corporate assets is paramount. The harm done to a person is debatable and subject to endless litigation, but the wealth of the corporation is to be protected from the jury’s full consideration. This ensures that even when a corporation is found liable, the penalty is rarely painful enough to force a change in behavior.

Dodging Accountability: A “Cost of Doing Business”

The Los Angeles Times’ actions demonstrate a masterful evasion of meaningful accountability. At every stage, the company worked to minimize its financial liability and deny the full scope of the harm it caused.

• Overturning Verdicts: It successfully eliminated the initial verdict for constructive termination and the subsequent $15.4 million award for non-economic damages.
• Strategic Offers: Just before the third trial, the company made a settlement offer of $1.25 million—the exact amount the jury coincidentally awarded. This strategic legal move, under Code of Civil Procedure section 998, was designed to cut off Simers’s ability to claim any further legal fees, effectively punishing him for refusing their offer and proceeding with the trial.
• Slashing Legal Fees: The court ultimately awarded Simers’s attorneys just $3.2 million in fees, a fraction of the over $15.5 million they requested, further disincentivizing law firms from taking on these lengthy, resource-draining cases.

The final $1.25 million payment is not justice. For a massive corporation like the Los Angeles Times, it is a rounding error—a calculated, tax-deductible cost of doing business.

Reclaiming Power: Pathways to Real Change

The Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the law under which Simers sued, is a vital tool for worker protection. However, this case proves that strong laws are not enough when they collide with a legal system that can be manipulated by corporate power.

Meaningful change requires systemic reforms that prevent corporations from using litigation as a weapon. This includes penalties for frivolous appeals designed to delay justice, reforms that streamline the legal process for discrimination victims, and ensuring that juries can fully consider a corporation’s wealth to award damages that are not just compensatory, but truly punitive.

Conclusion: A Story of a System, Not an Exception

Do not mistake the case of T.J. Simers for the story of one “bad apple” company. It is the story of a system working exactly as it was designed. It is the story of how our modern economy, propped up by a legal framework that prioritizes capital over people, predictably produces victims. The nine-year ordeal of one man is a window into a much larger crisis of corporate impunity, reminding us that for every case that makes it to court, thousands of others are crushed by the threat of a similar fate.

I used the below PDF of the legal complaint as my source for writing this article