The Perjurer Pays the Piper

By Evan Conder - Shawe Rosenthal LLP

October 2, 2024

A former in-house attorney for Lockheed Martin not only had her retaliation claims dismissed, but found herself on the hook for over $90,000 of Lockheed Martin’s attorneys’ fees after lying about her subsequent employment under oath.

In Deering v. Lockheed Martin, the plaintiff sued her former employer in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota for discrimination and retaliation.  Her discrimination claim was dismissed at the summary judgment stage, but her retaliation claim was, at one point, scheduled to go to trial.

On three different occasions prior to trial, the plaintiff represented that she was currently employed by nVent when she had actually been employed by a different employer, earning significantly more money. First, at her deposition, she claimed that she was currently employed by one nVent and that she was “exhaust[ed]” and “dishearten[ed]” about having to apply for jobs only to not get those jobs, so she had stopped looking for alternative employment while working for nVent. The plaintiff lied again in a declaration submitted to the district court which provided that she was currently employed as Associate General Counsel at nVent. Finally, in two confidential settlement letters, the plaintiff referenced nVent as her current employer and listed her salary and benefits as the basis for her calculations of damages.

Only in the weeks leading up to the trial did Lockheed Martin attorneys discover that the plaintiff had been employed with a new employer.  In reviewing the plaintiff’s trial exhibits, it was discovered that she had submitted a signed employment agreement with her new employer, and a W-2 showing that she made over $450,000 working elsewhere (while she had previously disclosed her actual income was almost $200,000 less in the previous year).

The plaintiff pointed the finger at her lawyers, alleging, among other things, that they directed her to lie under oath! The district court rejected her argument, dismissing her case, concluding that any other sanction would have been nothing more than “a slap on the wrist.”

The plaintiff appealed to the Eighth Circuit, which found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the case as a sanction for her conduct and emphasized that dismissal was appropriate in light of the plaintiff’s prolonged intentional deception and the severity of the same. The Eighth Circuit also noted that while the plaintiff’s attorneys had committed misconduct by signing letters containing false employment and salary information, the district court’s dismissal was on the basis of the plaintiff’s bad-faith conduct, not her attorneys’. And the appeals court agreed that passing the buck to her counsel was not a good excuse. “As a lawyer, Deering should have known better. She would have been aware, for example, that continuing to claim a lower salary would have increased her potential recovery at trial.” (Deering also flubbed her case by failing to properly contest the award of over $90,000 in attorneys’ fees against her, which happened while her case was on appeal).

The lesson here is, if you didn’t already know, don’t lie. Especially under oath. And especially if your profession is the law, which requires you to act as an “officer of the court” in all matters involving a case. And if you lie, as Mom always told you, chances are it will not work out in the end, as Ms. Deering had to find that out the hard way.

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