The longtime auditor for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ employee 401(k) plan sued the team Tuesday, alleging she was wrongfully terminated in 2002 and is owed nearly $200,000 for work tied to a federal Department of Labor investigation.
CPA Vivian Younger filed the breach of contract lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeking $192,065 plus interest dating back to July 2024. She claims the Dodgers offered her just $100,000 for the work, which she declined.
A Dodger spokesman declined to comment on the suit.
According to her suit, Younger was the Dodgers’ external 401(k) plan independent auditor from 2004-2021, conducting 17 annual audits of the plan’s financial statements.
In March 2020, the team received notice of a U.S. Department of Labor review of its 401(k) plan covering the 2017-2020 plan years to ensure compliance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Younger was retained by the Dodgers’ human resources chief to provide support services, and she was promised in a verbal contract that she would be paid $375 an hour, separate from her annual audit, to perform work related to the DOL investigation, the suit states.
Her review was to encompass the entities of Los Angeles Dodgers LLC, Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, American Media Productions LLC, Guggenheim Baseball Management LP and Elysian Park Ventures LLC, according to the suit.
The DOL investigation closed in September 2022, so Younger edited and finalized her DOL report between October 2022 and late March 2023, the suit states.
Younger first presented her invoices for payment the next month with the full amount due by June 30, 2023, but she was abruptly terminated in early June 2023 and alleges it was retaliatory and aimed at avoiding paying her for her work on the DOL case, the suit states.
Younger rejected the $100,000 offer made in September 2024 and says the team’s failure to pay her in full has caused “significant financial harm.”