A month after winning an Academy Award for scientific achievement this year, the longtime president of Pacific Title & Art Studio, a Hollywood post-production house, was fired from his job, the Los Angeles Times reports.

On Monday, Phillip Feiner sued his former employer, Safeguard Scientifics Inc., in Los Angeles County Superior Court for more than $15 million, claiming that he was pushed out after 30 years at the company in an illegal and particularly harsh manner.

Feiner, who was let go in March, two days before his contract expired, said in the lawsuit that he was targeted after he refused to go along with an alleged scheme to make rosy projections about the company’s earnings as the 86-year-old Hollywood firm was being readied for a sale.

Feiner also asserted in his breach-of-contract and wrongful-termination suit that he was denied a generous severance package he had been promised, and that a Pacific Title executive erased all the files on Feiner’s personal laptop computer that he kept in his office. His laptop, which he used for work, stored family photos and details about his father’s estate, which he was overseeing, and his list of business contacts.

An attorney for Pacific Title and Safeguard Scientifics said the companies had done nothing wrong. “They believe they acted properly toward Mr. Feiner and they are going to defend the lawsuit vigorously,” said Jill Basinger, a partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

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