Court upholds $2M award to Wal-Mart pharmacist

[question everything]

Source: AP

A former pharmacist at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed she was fired after asking to be paid the same as her male colleagues is entitled to $2 million in damages awarded by a jury, the state's highest court ruled Monday.

Cynthia Haddad was fired in 2004 after working more than 10 years for Wal-Mart, seven of them at a store in Pittsfield. Wal-Mart claimed she was fired because she left the pharmacy unattended and allowed a technician to use her computer security code to issue prescriptions during her absence.

Haddad, however, claimed in a discrimination lawsuit that she was fired because she complained about being paid less than her male counterparts, including a bonus given to pharmacy managers. The company paid the bonus, then fired her two weeks later. In 2007, a jury found that the company discriminated against Haddad, and awarded her $1 million in compensatory damages and another $1 million in punitive damages. A judge later revoked the $1 million award for punitive damages, finding there was an insufficient basis for the jury's decision.

But the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reinstated the punitive damages and upheld the total $2 million award, ruling that the jury had enough evidence to find that Wal-Mart's stated motive for Haddad's firing was a pretext and that Wal-Mart acted with a "discriminatory animus."




Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gaecXZqluQNmot-MiNrbXtY0nDNQD9B549BO0

[notadmblnd]

1. So, how you like her now Wal-Mart?

Worthless piece of shit of a shopping center.

[Selatius]

2. One wonders if the same outcome would've occured in more conservative states.

Like Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart. Or my home state of Mississippi.

Regardless, I applaud her efforts at standing up for equal treatment. She will have the good life ahead of her.

[rfranklin]

3. If she can ever collect...

They will try to do everything possible to get this vacated.

[question everything]

11. Does not matter. A precedent has been established

and if it is varied from one state to another - this is where the Supreme Court gets into the game.

[No Elephants]

15. Let's hope the Roberts Court never gets its hands on this.

[Selatius]

14. Wal-Mart would have to take it up to the Supreme Court to appeal a state supreme court.

Obviously, she already had to fight it all the way up to the state supreme court level.

[No Elephants]

16. WalMart probably will appeal. Too bad. I would much prefer to have the last

word come from the Mass Supreme Judicial Court than from the Roberts Court. Let's hope the SCOTUS will decline to review the case.

[Selatius]

17. Let's hope the SCOTUS is that lazy and punts on the issue by passing it up. nt

[CatholicEdHead]

4. Normal Wally World policy

when the time comes to move someone on, "terminate" them on a technicality. "Terminate is their official term to end employment no matter what the status, so if you actually quit, you still have to go through a "termination" exit interview with a manager and their "termination" intranet web interface.

[bertman]

5. Just ONE MORE REASON that I refuse to darken the doors of that evil group's stores.

Congratulations, Ms. Haddad, on your victory. May you one day actually receive the money you have been awarded.

[harmonicon]

6. the sad thing is...

that they're still probably saving a hell of a lot of money by paying women less than men across the board even with this 2 million hit.

[robo50]

7. Aw SHUCKS! It's getting so that there is no advantage whatsoever to

being a white male who thinks he deserves more than anyone else in the world.

Pretty soon even Walmart is going to have to start treating people of both genders equally! Where's the fun in that for the male gender folks in the USA?


:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

18. LOL. Three sarcasm emotes. Taking no chances, eh?

[NeoConsSuck]

22. You gave me my morning smile!

Even an old white male like myself loved your post!

[WoodyD]

8. Ouch

Wal-Mart acted with a "discriminatory animus."

Sounds like something you might need a suppository for. I'm sure Ms. Haddad would be glad to help you out with that.

[Vidar]

9. Glad to hear it.

[tomm2thumbs]

10. they'll sneeze it out in ten minutes of sales - poor Walmart /nt

[No Elephants]

19. Maybe. But it will help her and her family.

Unless they spend it foolishly, as do so many who win a million or two on the lottery.

[happygoluckytoyou]

12. wish i were on such a jury....... $200 000 000 000.....

[Stumbler]

13. Another slap on the wrist for Big Business

How long does it take 'em to make $2 million? 5, maybe 10 minutes?
And how many women continue to work within the company for lower wages than their "equal" peers? Countless.

Good for Haddad though. I hope she actually gets the compensation owed to her.

[Heathen57]

20. Hypocritical message of the week.

"Michelle Bradford, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the company is disappointed by the ruling.

"Wal-Mart has strong equal employment opportunity policies, and we foster female leadership," Bradford said."

After the state Supreme Court felt that this woman was due $1Mil. in Punitive damages, she makes this statement? I swear they must have these spokespeople take acting classes, because I could never issue such a statement without cracking up from the irony.

[sudopod]

21. HAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[femrap]

23. Maybe Walmart would be more

inclined to give her the money if a HUGE word-of-mouth campaign started saying:

Walmart believes women are worthless. (or should it be worth-less?) I hate walmart. A lot.

[newtothegame]

24. Geez. Nice, you can be set for life after something like that? I wanna be discriminated against. n/t

[imdjh]

25. I know. I ask my lawyer about once a month "Can I sue for this? Can I sue for this?"

It's harder than you think.

[gratuitous]

26. Guess again

Ms. Haddad was fired in 2004. I don't know what her employment history has been in the last five years, but if she has to put down Wal-Mart as a reference, I would guess that she wasn't very employable in her chosen professional field as a pharmacist.

But let's look at her award: $1 million compensatory, $1 million punitive. Out of the compensatory damages, take one-third out for her attorney's fee, we'll call it $667,000 left. There are also costs to be paid back, including postage, photocopies, deposition fees, court reporter fees, trial costs, appellate costs, if an appellate lawyer was brought in, that person probably did it for a piece of the action. Conservatively, let's say it was $100,000 in costs, leaving $567,000. Amortized over the five years since Ms. Haddad was fired by Wal-Mart, that works out to a little over $110,000 per year. I don't know what pharmacists make, but if it's $75,000 a year, she's looking at a "bonus" of a little more than $35,000 annually. Not exactly a king's ransom, and hardly the makings of "set for life."

Next, the $1 million punitive award. Depending on the state, punitive damages are available as a "public service" sort of thing to rein in bad actors against the public who can't be punished any other way. In Oregon, the state claims 60% of any punitive damage award, and other states with punitive damages available as a remedy take similar percentages. For the sake of argument, let's say it's 60%, which leave $400,000. That money is subject to the same contingent fee, leaving approximately $233,000. Costs have already been deducted from the compensatory award, so that's to the plaintiff's good, a total of about $800,000 all told.

Now, out of that $800,000, there will be tax considerations to be taken into account, and to ameliorate the hit as much as possible, Ms. Haddad will probably hire an accountant to reduce her liability as much as possible. That will cost in the neighborhood of $10,000, as a wild-ass guess (could be more but probably not a whole lot less).

So, you're blackballed in your profession for five years; you can't get decent work; the stress of the ongoing court proceeding; the mounting costs, which you're responsible for whether you win or lose; the uncertainty of whether you'll ever work in your chosen field again; and at the end of it all, Wal-Mart could still petition the state supreme court award to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will take a minimum of two years to render a decision, probably remanding it to the state supreme court to consider some newly-minted punitive damages consideration that hasn't been heard of before.

Not exactly the sort of chance any reasonable person would want to gamble on.