The Regents of the University of California did not get a fair trial in an employment discrimination case that strapped the school with $13 million in damages, a California appeals court ruled.

California's Second District Court of Appeal on Thursday reversed a judgment in favor of Lauren Pinter-Brown, a professor of medicine who claimed the University of California, Los Angeles discriminated against her based on age and gender, over grave errors that constituted "a miscarriage of justice," according to the opinion.

The court agreed with UCLA's lawyers from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Linfield prejudiced the jury by beginning the trial with a speech quoting Martin Luther King Jr. about how the "arc of the moral universe bends toward justice," followed by a video featuring notable civil rights activists throughout history.

"The judge told the jury he was honored to sit before 'the people who are going to be bending that arc.'" When the university's legal team, lead by Orrick's Eric Shumsky, objected to Linfield's presentation, the judge said it was not improper because he had instructed the jurors that these civil rights figures were sometimes plaintiffs and sometimes defendants, the decision states.

"By telling the jurors they were Dr. King, the court told them they were also there to right a wrong," wrote Associate Justice Maria Stratton, who was joined by Acting Presiding Justice Elizabeth Grimes and Associate Justice John Shepard Wiley Jr. "Each case cited by the court was another step in the right direction: toward equality and away from discrimination. The court's message was clear: the jury's job was to continue in that great, noble and moral tradition of pushing society toward equality."

The justices said that the judge's "resolute and stirring call to action" stacked the deck against UCLA and would be inappropriate in any case.

A UCLA spokesperson said in an email that the university is pleased with the ruling and reviewing the details. "Ensuring a respectful and inclusive environment is essential to the research and education carried out by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. UCLA Health and its medical school are committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination, intimidation, retaliation or harassment of any kind," the spokesperson said.

The trial court also "abandoned its duty to ensure UCLA received a fair and impartial trial" when it admitted "irrelevant and highly prejudicial" reports into the record in the form of "Me too" evidence, the justices decided. Testimony from a report detailing instances of racial discrimination on campus, fell outside of the protected age and gender discrimination classes, the justices noted.

"'Me too' evidence is never admissible to prove an employer's propensity to harass," Stratton wrote. "Yet, that is exactly what the court allowed Dr. Pinter-Brown to do."

In addition, the justices called out Linfield's "inexplicable error" of allowing Dr. Pinter-Brown to resurface a previously adjudicated retaliation claim during the close of evidence.

"When the trial court adjudicated the retaliation claim, the judgment as to that issue was final and could not be revived," the court of appeal said. "We can imagine few things more prejudicial to UCLA than to have that judgment nullified at the close of evidence, forcing UCLA to argue an issue it could not have reasonably been expected to defend."

The court said putting the claim before the jury "at the 11th hour constituted an ambush," and that Pinter-Brown took advantage of the ambush by pointing out that the defense did not reference the retaliation claim "one iota."

Shegerian & Associates attorneys Carney Shegerian and Jill McDonell, who represented Pinter-Brown, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.