Walmart will have to pay virtually $35 million to certainly one of its former truck drivers after a California jury discovered the store had falsely accused him of staff’ reimbursement fraud and wrongfully terminated him.
A San Bernardino County jury this week ordered Walmart to pay driving force Jesus “Jesse” Fonseca $25 million in punitive damages, plus $9.7 million for long run non-economic losses together with delight in lifestyles and psychological struggling. The jury discovered that Walmart had falsely accused him of violating its integrity coverage underneath its observation of ethics, lawyers for Fonseca stated in a observation to CBS MoneyWatch.
Walmart didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Fonseca, who labored at Walmart’s Apple Valley distribution heart in San Bernardino County for 14 years, was once injured when some other semi-truck slammed into his Walmart semi-truck from at the back of right through a June 2017 shift for the corporate, his lawyers alleged in a 2019 lawsuit towards the store.
He filed a staff’ reimbursement declare for his accidents, and was once urged by means of medical doctors to not push, pull or elevate anything else over 10 kilos, in addition to to forestall riding a industrial automobile. Walmart failed to house those paintings restrictions, the lawsuit alleges.
Fonseca, who was once put on clinical go away, was once in the long run terminated, allegedly as a result of Walmart surveilled him and came upon he’d pushed a non-public automobile, in line with his lawyers. Fonseca understood that he was once allowed to power private cars, and was once simplest limited from riding commercially.
The proof within the trial “confirmed that Walmart’s defamation of Jesse was once a part of a broader scheme to make use of false accusations to pressure injured truckers again to paintings in advance or, if no longer, terminate them in order that Walmart can lower down staff’ reimbursement prices,” stated Beverly Hills trial legal professional David M. deRubertis, an legal professional for Fonseca.
Any other legal professional for Fonseca, Mohamed Eldessouky of Eldessouky Regulation, APC, stated in a observation supplied to CBS MoneyWatch that the decision “sends a transparent message.”
“If an organization comes to a decision to query somebody’s personality and integrity, it will have to achieve this moderately and in truth. Walmart must reconsider the way it treats the hardworking drivers who’re the spine of its trade,” Eldessouky stated.
