Category Archives: WV Human Rights Act

Age Discrimination, Attorney's Fees, Back and Front Pay Issues, Emotional Distress Damages, Jury verdicts, Punitive damages, Result for Employee, WV Human Rights Act

Jackson County jury awards $2.1 million in age case

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On March 17, 2010, a jury in Jack­son Coun­ty in West Vir­ginia award­ed Jerold John Rice Jr. rough­ly $2.1 mil­lion in an age dis­crim­i­na­tion case against The Burke-Par­sons-Bowl­by Cor­po­ra­tion, Stel­la-Jones US Hold­ings Cor­po­ra­tion, and Stel­la-Jones, Inc., tried in Judge Thomas C. Evans III’s court.

Mr. Rice was rep­re­sent­ed by Mark Atkin­son and Paul Framp­ton at Atkin­son & Polak, PLLC, and the defen­dants were rep­re­sent­ed by Roger Wolfe at Jack­son & Kel­ly PLLC in Charleston, and Kevin Hyde at Foley & Lard­ner, LLP in Jack­sonville, Flori­da.

Here is a quick run-down of what was award­ed in the case:

  • Back pay: $142,659 award­ed by jury.
  • Pre-judg­ment inter­est: $11,791.84 from date of ter­mi­na­tion through trial.
  • Front pay: $1,991,332.00 award­ed by jury (from rough­ly age 48 through retire­ment age at 67).
  • Emo­tion­al dis­tress: $0.
  • Puni­tive dam­ages: Jury did not answer ques­tion affir­ma­tive­ly which would have allowed award of puni­tive damages.
  • Total judg­ment based on jury’s ver­dict: $2,145,782.84, plus post-judg­ment inter­est on that amount at 7% per annum.
  • Attor­neys’ fees: $117,235 award­ed by judge (based on $450 an hour for Mark Atkin­son and $300 per hour for Paul Framp­ton).
  • Lit­i­ga­tion expens­es: $20,324.16 award­ed by judge.
  • Total award: $2,283,342.00 (based on jury ver­dict, pre-judg­ment inter­est, attor­neys’ fees and expens­es) plus post-judg­ment inter­est at 7% per annum.

The Rice case illus­trates the risk employ­ers face when they ter­mi­nate an old­er, good, long-stand­ing employ­ee, and replace him or her with a much younger per­son with lit­tle or no expe­ri­ence for the employer.

What Happened?

Mr. Rice at the time of his ter­mi­na­tion (in 2009) was age 47 and had worked for Burke-Par­sons-Bowl­by Cor­po­ra­tion for 24 years. When Mr. Rice was ter­mi­nat­ed he was the cor­po­rate controller.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Jack­son Coun­ty jury awards $2.1 mil­lion in age case →
Arbitration, Result for Employer, WV Human Rights Act, WV Supreme Court

WV Supreme Court Enforces Employment Arbitration Agreement in Clites v. Clawges, 10–13-09

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10–13-09: The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court addressed the enforce­abil­i­ty of employ­ment arbi­tra­tion agree­ments in State ex rel. Clites v. Clawges, 224 W. Va. 299, 685 S.E.2d 693 (2009) (opin­ion at Find­law’s web site). This Clites deci­sion is dis­cussed in my chart of West Vir­ginia Supreme Court deci­sions.

Clites Goes to Work for TeleTech and Signs an Arbitration Agreement

WV Capitol Building The plain­tiff, Jill Clites, went to work for TeleTech in Octo­ber 2004 as a Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Dur­ing new employ­ee ori­en­ta­tion, Clites met with a human resources rep­re­sen­ta­tive for about 90 to 120 min­utes, dur­ing which time Clites reviewed and signed a large num­ber of doc­u­ments relat­ed to the ori­en­ta­tion. In the record before the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court, there were dis­putes over whether indi­vid­ual doc­u­ments were dis­cussed with Clites and whether she was required to sing all the doc­u­ments dur­ing the ori­en­ta­tion ses­sion, but it appears that dur­ing that ses­sion Clites signed an arbi­tra­tion agree­ment which TeleTech required of most or all new employees.

Clites remained employed at TeleTech until July 12, 2007, when she was ter­mi­nat­ed. She then filed suit for sex­u­al harass­ment and retal­i­a­tion. Clites alleged she com­plained about the sex­u­al harass­ment, that TeleTech failed to take appro­pri­ate cor­rec­tive action, and that TeleTech retal­i­at­ed against her for the com­plaint by fir­ing her.

Clites Files Suit In West Virginia Circuit Court

Clites filed suit in West Vir­ginia Cir­cuit Court in Mor­gan­town. TeleTech then invoked the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment by fil­ing a motion to dis­miss the law­suit and by fil­ing a sep­a­rate law­suit in fed­er­al court argu­ing that Clites waived her rights to a jury tri­al by sign­ing the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment. In essence, TeleTech argued that Clites gave up her rights to file suit and to a jury tri­al by sign­ing the arbi­tra­tion agree­ment, and that her only rem­e­dy was to file an arbi­tra­tion pro­ceed­ing (with the Amer­i­can Arbi­tra­tion Asso­ci­a­tion) pur­suant to the arbi­tra­tion agreement.

Con­tin­ue read­ing WV Supreme Court Enforces Employ­ment Arbi­tra­tion Agree­ment in Clites v. Clawges, 10–13–09 →
WV Human Rights Act, WV Supreme Court

Chart of West Virginia Supreme Court Decisions on Employment Issues

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WV Supreme Court Justices, click here to open chart of employment decisions

 

 

I have pre­pared a chart con­tain­ing a sum­ma­ry of West Virginia Supreme Court deci­sions sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ing employ­ment law. The chart starts on Jan­u­ary 1, 2009, with deci­sions issued after that date. The chart con­tains hyper­links to the opin­ions, both on the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court’s web site, and on Find­law or on Google Schol­ar. If you click on the pho­tos of each Jus­tice (in the chart, not on the image above), that will take you to the biog­ra­phy page for that Jus­tice on the Supreme Court’s web site. Final­ly, the chart con­tains hyper­links to this blog.

Click the line below to open the chart, which is an Adobe Acro­bat PDF:

WV Supreme Court Employ­ment Decisions

(click here to down­load the free Acro­bat Read­er, if you don’t already have it installed on your computer).

This chart is copy­right pro­tect­ed by Drew M. Capud­er and Capud­er Fan­ta­sia PLLC. You have per­mis­sion to dis­trib­ute this chart only if you dis­trib­ute the chart unedit­ed by any­one oth­er than Drew Capud­er. In oth­er words, you may dis­trib­ute this chart only in its orig­i­nal form as down­loaded from Drew Capuder’s Employ­ment Law Blog.

Employment policies, Hostile work environment, National origin discrimination, Prompt remedial action, Religious discrimination, Result for Employer, WV Human Rights Act, WV Supreme Court

WV Supreme Court rules that employer’s policy and prompt action protected it against liability; Colgan Air v. WV HRC; 10/25/07

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West Virginia Capitol Building at Night Octo­ber 25, 2007: In Col­gan Air, Inc. v. West Vir­ginia Human Rights Com­mis­sion, 221 W. Va. 588, 656 S.E.2d 33 (1977) the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court addressed claims of harass­ment (based on reli­gion and nation­al ori­gin) and retal­i­a­tion under the WV Human Rights Act, W. Va. Code § 5–11‑1 et seq.

The plain­tiff was a pilot, Rao Zahid Khan, who alleged that his co-work­ers sub­ject­ed him to fre­quent deroga­to­ry and insult­ing com­ments about his nation­al ori­gin and reli­gion (he was Ara­bic). The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court ruled that Col­gan Air (a) was not liable for harass­ment because it had poli­cies and pro­ce­dures pro­hibit­ing harass­ment and took swift and deci­sive action after learn­ing about the harass­ment, and (b) was not liable for retal­i­a­tion because Col­gan Air ter­mi­nat­ed the employ­ee (Mr. Khan) for a legit­i­mate and non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry reason–he failed to pass a manda­to­ry FAA pro­fi­cien­cy test for pilots.

Con­tin­ue read­ing WV Supreme Court rules that employer’s pol­i­cy and prompt action pro­tect­ed it against lia­bil­i­ty; Col­gan Air v. WV HRC; 10/25/07 →