Facilitating Practical Solutions to the Most Challenging Problems


Decisions — continued from Previous Page


could be relevant to the reprehensibility of an individual tort.” (Johnson v. Ford Motor Co. (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1191, 1203.). This principle was recently


MEDIATIONWITH GARY FIELDS


business | real estate | construction defect and accident professional liability | product liability | personal injury employment | insurance | complex litigation


To schedule a mediation, contact Mary Anne at 562-432-5111 www.fieldsadr.com


Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Kern Counties


R.A. CARRINGTON www.CaliforniaNeutrals.org


BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


“


PROBATE PERSONAL INJURY PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE


Mr. Carrington was very knowledgeable. Insurance companies respect his opinion. Extensive trial experience (ABOTA), Excellent Mediator, fair objective arbitrator. Extraordinarily capable and forthcoming with efforts and involvement. He is very thorough and fair.


” Quote from 2006 Consumer Lawyers Evaluations PH 805.565.1487 FAX 82— The Advocate Magazine APRIL 2011 805.565.3187 ratc@cox.net 565 SHEFFIELD, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 93108


reaffirmed, yet again, by the California Supreme Court in Roby, supra, 47 Cal.4th 686, 715. The plaintiff in Roby was fired from her customer service liaison position after nearly 25 years of service with McKesson, Inc. for taking absences relat- ed to her disability. In the last few years of her employment, Ms. Roby began suffer- ing from a panic disorder that restricted her ability to work and caused her to sweat profusely and dig her nails into her arm to the point she caused open sores. During this time, the plaintiff’s supervisor made ongoing offensive and demeaning comments and gestures about the plain- tiff’s body odor related to her medical condition and arm sores. The evidence also included various personnel manage- ment actions taken by plaintiff’s supervi- sor such as reprimanding the plaintiff in front of others, excluding the plaintiff from office parties by assigning her to answer phones, shunning the plaintiff at weekly staff meetings, and belittling the plaintiff’s job. After finding that the plain- tiff was wrongfully terminated, discrimi- nated against and harassed because of her disability, the jury awarded the plaintiff over $19 million, including $15 million in punitive damages. The Roby Court held that the “repre-


hensibility” factor requires evidence of “repeated wrongdoing by [the] employer.” (Id. at 713.) The Supreme Court explained that a $15 million award was inappropri- ate because, [t]here is no evidence, for example,


that [the particular managing agent’s] actions toward Roby were the product of a corporate culture that encouraged similar supervisorial conduct. Rather, they appear to be the isolated actions of a single supervisor, combined with the one-time failure on the part of employer McKesson to take prompt responsive action when these events came to its attention.


(Id. at 715-716, italics added].)


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112