LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) - A Rite Aid worker who sued her former employer for wrongful dismissal and emotional distress won nearly $6 million in a third trial after an appeals court sent two previous verdicts back for reconsideration.
The victory was especially sweet for plaintiff Maria Martinez, since the second jury awarded her only $341,000 on the same claims. A California appeals court recently left the third verdict largely intact, reversing only a minor portion of the award for lost wages.
Martinez sued Rite Aid and her former supervisor in 2008, claiming she was subjected to “outrageous conduct” including the intentional infliction of emotional distress, discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination. A Los Angeles jury awarded her $3.4 million in compensatory damages and $4.8 million in punitives but Rite Aid appealed and the Second Appellate District reversed, ordering a retrial on the question of damages for wrongful dismissal and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The second jury was instructed to accept the first jury’s findings of liability against Rite Aid and the supervisor. It cut the damages to $321,000 on wrongful dismissal and ordered Chau to pay $20,000 for emotional harm, but ordered nothing against Rite Aid.
The plaintiff appealed this time and the Second District ruled the jury’s award of zero damages against Rite Aid was inconsistent with the prior jury’s findings of liability as well as the award of damages against the supervisor. The appeals court sent the case back for reconsideration again, with lengthy instructions to the trial judge. The next jury was to be told it is bound by the liability findings in the first trial, including that Martinez had “a known mental disability,” she was fired because of her disability and the fact she had filed a sexual harassment complaint - and that Rite Aid and its employees “engaged in outrageous conduct.”
The third jury in March 2018 returned a verdict of $2 million for wrongful termination, including $464,000 in past economic loss, $574,000 in future economic loss, and $974,000 in past and future noneconomic loss. The jury also awarded $4 million for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rite Aid appealed again, arguing among other things that the jury awarded duplicative damages against Rite Aid and the supervisor.
In an April 30 decision, the Second District Court of Appeal rejected most of Rite Aid’s arguments. The appeals court agreed only on the narrow issue of Martinez’s post-dismissal earnings. The jury awarded her a total of $464,258 in past economic damages, the appeals court ruled, but it should have subtracted the $140,840 Martinez both sides agree Martinez earned after she was fired. The court left the rest of the verdict intact and ordered Rite Aid to pay Martinez’s costs.