Jury awards US$450,000 to employee who declined birthday party

Undated picture of party decorations. (Photograph by Dan Prado/Pexels)

LOUISVILLE, KY. --
A Kentucky jury has awarded a person US$450,000 who sued his employer after he requested them to not have a good time his birthday at work — they usually did it anyway.

Kevin Berling instructed his supervisor at Gravity Diagnostics in Covington in 2019 that a birthday celebration would trigger him immense stress.

However the firm didn’t heed his request, and Berling suffered a panic assault, the Courier Journal reported. The subsequent day Berling had one other panic assault when his supervisor chastised him for “stealing his co-workers’” pleasure and “being a bit of lady,” in response to a lawsuit. Berling was fired after the second assault.

Berling alleged in his lawsuit the corporate discriminated in opposition to him primarily based on a incapacity and retaliated in opposition to him for demanding an inexpensive lodging to it.

The jury returned the decision after a two-day trial in Kenton County that resulted in late March. The jury awarded him $300,000 for emotional misery and $150,000 in misplaced wages.

An lawyer for the corporate, Katherine Kennedy, stated it continues to disclaim legal responsibility and is pursuing its post-trial choices.

Julie Brazil, the corporate’s founder and chief working officer, stated in an e mail assertion to the newspaper that “with ever-increasing incidents of office violence, this verdict units a really harmful precedent for employers and most significantly staff that until bodily violence really happens, office violence is appropriate.”

Brazil stated that her staff, relatively than the plaintiff, have been the victims within the case.

Berling’s lawyer, Tony Bucher, stated as soon as the jury acquired to satisfy his consumer, they realized the corporate’s declare that he posed a menace was far-fetched.

Berling had instructed his supervisor that a birthday celebration would convey again dangerous childhood reminiscences surrounding his mother and father’ divorce. The supervisor forgot to go alongside his request, the corporate stated.