DEAF DRIVER DECLINED EMPLOYMENT WAS A VICTIM OF DISCRIMINATION
After a Omaha jury found against Werner Enterprises, Inc. and Drivers Management, LLC and awarded $36 million in punitive damages and $75,000 in compensatory damages to a truck driver who was denied employment because of his hearing related disability, a federal judge (in mid-January) reduced the jury’s verdict to $300,000 (because of the federal cap on compensatory and punitive damages in employment discrimination cases) and awarded $35,682 in lost wages.
In a written statement, Karla Gilbride, general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), noted that “As the court noted in its order, federal law caps punitive damages at $300,000 – not even one percent of the jury's intended award …. These caps, which were set by Congress decades ago, take away juries’ power to deter large employers from engaging in intentional discrimination against workers. Juries who have heard the evidence should be able to punish employers who knowingly or recklessly break the nation’s workplace civil rights laws without constraints from outdated caps on damages.”
No capping that!
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