$4 Million to California Disability Discrimination Plaintiff

McKesson Corporation is a large organization, ranking at the top of the Fortune 500. A jury in Yolo County (near Sacramento) decided the company's treatment of Charlene Roby, an employee with panic attacks, amounted to disability discrimination. So, the jury awarded $15 million in punitive damages against McKesson, on top of a multi-million dollar damages verdict.

The California Court of Appeal Roby v. McKesson HBOC reduced the verdict to about $4 million. An attorneys' fees award of $728,000 was not even challenged. The opinion primarily deals with the adjustment to the punitive damages verdict in light of recent case law setting constitutional boundaries. But if we're arguing about whether $2 million or $15 million is an appropriate punitive damages award, something went wrong from an employment law / HR management standpoint.

The plaintiff's psychological disability resulted in some unpleasant side effects, like body odor resulting from medication. In addition, her absences resulted in discipline and, ultimately, termination under a no-fault attendance policy. The evidence demonstrated that the line supervision was unsympathetic to the employee's issues. In fact, there was evidence of some outright hostility by the employee's direct supervisor. But when the employee complained after her termination, not much was done to assess the situation and ensure consistent and fair treatment. Thus, some employees received much more lenient treatment under the no-fault attendance policy. Additionally, the Company did not exempt from the attendance policy leave that fairly obviously would have qualified as FMLA/CFRA leave. A more detailed review of the application of the "rolling" no-fault attendance policy to this employee might have saved McKesson a few million. Under the disability discrimination laws, mechanical application of attendance policies may be hazardous to the balance sheet.

Silver lining - the court held that there was insufficient evidence of a hostile work environment, resulting in vacatur of about $1.1 million of the award. There was indeed evidence of "hostility" and some mistreatment. However, it was not sufficiently "severe or pervasive" to sustain the jury's verdict. Additionally, the court distinguished between conduct that will support a "harassment" claim, and personnel actions, which do not constitute "harassment" in the legal sense. As a result of the court's findings, Roby's supervisor escaped about $500,000 in personal liability for her mistreatment of Roby.