Washington Post Journalist Jason Rezaian on His Iranian Imprisonment
JONES DAY TALKS®: Private Antitrust Litigation in the Netherlands
Last month, in Jane Doe v. Alkiviades David, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury returned a verdict in a sexual assault and harassment case in the amount of $900 million. This verdict is one of the largest ever for a...more
In October 2021, a California federal jury awarded $137 million to a former contract employee who worked for Tesla. The jury found Tesla liable for creating a racially hostile work environment and awarded the employee $6.9...more
A federal court judge pared down last year’s jaw-dropping $137 million damages award against Tesla in a racial bias lawsuit. On April 13, 2022, the judge granted Tesla’s motion for a reduction in the amount of damages in part...more
A recent Seventh Circuit decision made two rulings on issues arising under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that defendants may find useful in other cases. First, potential punitive damages exceeding a single-digit ratio...more
On April 27, 2020, five Missouri retailers filed a putative class action suit against their insurance provider, The Cincinnati Insurance Company, for breach of contract relating to the insurer’s denial of coverage under the...more
Punitive damages are an extraordinary remedy under Title VII, and in order to obtain them, the plaintiff must satisfy a higher standard. Nonetheless, the threat of substantial punitive damages under Title VII should put...more
A February 2020 jury verdict against county music star Martina McBride’s production company highlights – albeit indirectly – the perils of unpaid internship programs and the issues they can cause under the Fair Labor...more
A recent personal injury verdict in Brooklyn is one of the largest ever awarded to a single plaintiff in New York state. The verdict highlights the utility of two procedural tools available to defendants facing excessive...more
On March 27, 2018, New Jersey became the latest state to pass comprehensive equal pay legislation, and one of the first states to pass an equal pay law that extends protections beyond gender to all classes of employees that...more
On February 21, 2018, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held an attorney could perform the essential functions of her job while working remotely for a ten-week period. As a result, when the employer refused to permit the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In E.E.O.C. v. Scott Medical Health Center, P.C. No. CV 16-225, 2017 WL 5493975, at *2 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 16, 2017), a default judgement of liability was entered against the defendant company for sex-based...more
The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all South Carolina employers) recently decided a religious accommodation case in which a jury awarded a former employee more than half a million dollars. The Equal...more
In its December Vaughn decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that plaintiffs in age discrimination cases may not collect compensatory or punitive damages. The court based its decision on its interpretation of...more
Last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed its earlier position that compensatory and punitive damages are not available to plaintiffs who allege violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)....more
On December 7, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit resolved a split among district courts within the circuit regarding whether liquidated damages may be awarded under both the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
An ALJ at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently ruled that a former CFO was entitled to approximately $1.9 million in back pay, front pay, and compensatory damages, concluding that he was retaliated against in violation...more
Things have been quiet in the world of punitive damages for the last few months, but two recent decisions substantially reducing punitive awards under the BMW/State Farm factors warrant mention. My colleague Miriam Nemetz...more
The court’s decision to restore a $500,000 punitive damages award for failure to adequately address a sexual harassment complaint highlights employers’ duty to investigate every allegation and take appropriate remedial...more
In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Bass Pro Outdoor World, L.L.C., a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the EEOC can seek punitive and compensatory damages for a pattern or practice...more
As we reported earlier this month, courts sometimes disregard the general rule of non-liability for the conduct of independent contractors, and allow liability to be imposed against principals — including for punitive damages...more
On June 9, 2016, the California Supreme Court ruled in Nickerson v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co., __ Cal.4th ___ (2016) that the attorneys’ fees awarded to a veteran who sued for benefits under a “hospital stay” policy should be...more
Lately, we have had many occasions to criticize courts’ analysis of punitive damages issues, so it is nice for a change to be able to report on the Tenth Circuit’s insightful decision in Lompe v. Sunridge Partners. Readers...more
In EEOC v. Consol Energy, Inc., Case No. 13-CV-215 (N. D. W.Va. Feb. 9, 2015), the EEOC brought a religious discrimination suit on behalf of an employee against his coal mining employer defendants, parent company Consol...more
The conventional wisdom among attorneys and litigants in the noncompete and trade secret arena is that the cases are all about the injunctions, usually at the TRO and interlocutory injunction stage. Some judgments handed...more
On November 17, 2014, a San Diego federal jury of five men and three women awarded Plaintiff Rosario Juarez $185 million dollars in punitive damages in her pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against her former employer AutoZone...more