A Los Angeles police officer locked in a high-profile overtime fight with the city just scored a big win in court, keeping her defamation case very much alive.
On April 29, 2026, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis rejected the city’s attempt to toss most of Officer Isabel Morales’ lawsuit. The ruling means Morales can keep pursuing claims for defamation, whistleblower retaliation, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and gender discrimination, and that her accusations of public shaming and career sidelining are now headed toward a jury.
In her written order, Duffy-Lewis said that statements by the department to reporters and to Morales’ co-workers “have provided fodder for harassment motivated by plaintiff’s gender,” and she denied the city’s motion to knock out those claims, according to MyNewsLA. The civil trial is currently set for Nov. 29, 2027, keeping the case on the city’s docket for years to come.
How the dispute started
As reported by CBS Los Angeles, prosecutors said Morales was subpoenaed as an “on-call” witness for a murder trial that wrapped in early March 2022, but that she continued to report herself “on call” more than 70 times after the trial had ended, collecting roughly $15,087 in overtime. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged her in September 2023 with one felony count of grand theft by embezzlement.
Morales, for her part, says she did not know the trial had concluded and that supervisors had signed off on each of her overtime requests, according to the same report. That basic dispute over what she knew and when it was communicated has now ballooned into a full-scale civil war between an officer and her own department.
Department fallout and discipline
Morales’ lawsuit says an internal LAPD investigation later cleared her of the central allegation of intentional overtime fraud but sustained other personnel counts and resulted in administrative discipline, according to MyNewsLA. The complaint states that Morales, who was pregnant at the time of her arrest, was suspended without pay, then acquitted by a jury in March 2025.
Even after the acquittal, her troubles inside the department allegedly continued. The suit says a Board of Rights proceeding sustained four counts, hit her with a 25-day suspension, and imposed long-term duty restrictions that have kept her off street assignments.
Why this matters for the city
City attorneys have been aggressive in trying to knock out cases like Morales’ early, wary of both the price tag and the optics that come with officers suing City Hall. An investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that Los Angeles has paid out tens of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts to LAPD officers in recent years, a trend that officials say has strained the budget and intensified scrutiny of how the department disciplines its own.
Legal implications
At the heart of the city’s failed maneuver is California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which gives defendants a relatively quick way to ask courts to strike claims that arise from protected speech or petitioning activity. Once a defendant makes that showing, judges then look at whether the plaintiff has demonstrated a probability of winning on the merits.
For a breakdown of that legal framework, the California Anti-SLAPP Project offers a guide to Code Civ. Proc. A7425.16.
What’s next
With Duffy-Lewis allowing Morales’ claims to move ahead, both sides now pivot to trial prep for the Nov. 29, 2027 date. Lawyers for Morales and the city did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As the case grinds forward, legal observers will be watching how the court navigates the line between legitimate workplace discipline and potentially defamatory statements made in the heat of criminal and internal investigations.
