Wrongful termination cases based on religious discrimination are generally are far less common than other types of discrimination, because few employee exercise their religious rights in a way that would affect that work or attendance. In May v Community Development Commission of Los Angeles (2014), the claimant was 13 year-employee resident manager with the defendant Commission. Ms. Mayo was a good employee and regularly received good performance reviews. During the holiday of 2009, claimant asked her supervisor by e-mail if she could be excused from the annual staff luncheon if, like in the past years, the luncheon was actually a staff Christmas party, as she was Jewish. After not receiving a response from her supervisor, Ms. Mayo informed her that she would not be able to attend because of her religious beliefs. Immediately after, the supervisor’s attitude toward the claimant drastically changed, as she became rude, dismissive, and unprofessional. The supervisors would chastised Ms. Mayo, making derogatory remarks about her religion and telling her to “go work in the office, while everyone else is having fun and exchanging gifts without you”. In addition, the claimant’s supervisor started increasing her workload, like it was never done before.
Plaintiff made multiple harassment and retaliation complaints to her supervisor’s manager and to HR, but none of those complaints were addressed. Eventually, a superficial HR investigation took place, which resulted in having no findings of harassment or retaliation. The retaliation continued and had gotten worse, as a result of which Plaintiff started developing health issues. In November 2011, Plaintiff was terminated for allegedly refusing to follow instructions. Ms. Mayo was subsequently diagnosed with a major depressive disorder as well as panic disorder. To make things worse, she couldn’t even continue her treatment as her health coverage was interrupted with her termination.
The Defendants’ most recent settlement offer before trial was $20k.
A combination of facts made this case particularly compelling and lead to this high jury award:
- Plaintiff’s relatively long career with the defendants;
- Plaintiff’s history of good work performance;
- A number of witnesses who witnessed and were willing to testify about the harassment that Plaintiff was experiencing;
- The defendants’ failure to remedy the harassment and retaliation despite Plaintiff’s repeated complaints;
- The petty, ridiculous reasons for terminated stated by the employer; and
- Plaintiff’s serious psychological issues which developed as a result of her termination.