Walmart should pay one among its former truck drivers $35 million after a jury discovered the retailer had falsely accused him of employees’ compensation fraud.
A San Bernardino County jury mentioned in a two-part verdict filed final week that former Walmart driver Jesus “Jesse” Fonseca is owed $25 million in punitive damages and $9.7 million in precise damages, which incorporates losses from misplaced wages and advantages and non-economic hurt, equivalent to emotional misery.
The semi-truck Fonseca was driving for the corporate was rear-ended by one other semi-truck in 2017, forcing him to file a employees’ compensation declare with a physician’s order to limit industrial driving and decrease lifting objects. In keeping with the lawsuit filed in 2019, Walmart denied Fonseca’s requests to accommodate his accidents with completely different work duties. The corporate later accused him of fraud, saying there was surveillance of him driving a private automobile whereas injured. The corporate fired Fonseca whereas he was on work-related damage depart for a breach of integrity in being “intentionally dishonest” and made him ineligible for being rehired.
“The notion that someone possibly performing daily activities outside of their work restrictions amounts to fraud is preposterous,” Fonseca’s grievance mentioned. “Yet, even if an employee with work restrictions inadvertently violates them, this does not amount to fraud in the workplace.”
Walmart, nevertheless, pushed again towards the jury’s verdict, arguing its actions have been rightful. The retail big mentioned it would pursue cures, probably within the type of damages.
“This outrageous verdict simply does not reflect the straightforward and uncontested facts of this case,” a Walmart spokesperson advised Fortune in a press release.
Fonseca, who labored for the corporate for 14 years as a truck driver and mentored different drivers for over a decade, “lived and breathed Walmart,” in line with an X submit from David deRubertis, one among Fonseca’s attorneys.
However after leaving his submit at Walmart, Fonseca had little luck discovering a brand new job. Six months after being terminated and whereas he was making use of to new jobs, Fonseca was compelled to inform potential employers Walmart had fired him for “gross misconduct and integrity” as a result of he was suspended for fraud, in line with the lawsuit. He was not given job gives by these potential employers.
The $35 million in damages is a hefty payday for Fonseca. In keeping with job listings on Walmart’s web site, regional truck drivers make as much as $110,000 of their first yr. The retailer boosted its wage for the place in 2022 because the business confronted a scarcity of practically 80,000 drivers because of elevated freight calls for and pandemic-induced challenges like closed driving colleges and DMVs, in line with the American Trucking Associations. In keeping with Walmart, the common pay of a long-haul freight driver in 2022 was about $56,000.
Fonseca’s different lawyer, Mohamed Eldessouky, mentioned in a assertion to CBS MoneyWatch the decision “sends a clear message.”
“If a company decides to question someone’s character and integrity, it must do so carefully and honestly,” he mentioned. “Walmart should rethink how it treats the hardworking drivers who are the backbone of its business.”
