April 14, 2010 – 12:32 pm
The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has hit United Parcel Service with a second substantial judgment for discriminating against a Massachusetts employee. This time, the complaint was for handicap bias by UPS in Springfield, Massachusetts. After a trial at the MCAD, UPS was ordered to pay almost $750,000 in lost wages and another $125,000 in emotional distress. The [...]
Sometimes litigants learn the hard way that the judicial system doesn’t always dispense justice as well as it merely settles disputes. With arbitration, that lesson can be particularly harsh, since arbitrators aren’t required to follow the same rules as judges and, in almost every case, their decisions cannot be appealed. For this reason, the choice of an arbitrator to decide your lawsuit requires extreme care. The [...]
October 19, 2009 – 6:36 am
In a ruling that may be useful to Massachusetts employers, the Supreme Judicial Court in October made clear that puntive damages can only be awarded to discrimination plaintiffs when their employer’s conduct is “outrageous or egregious.” Punitive damages are, after all, available only to punish bad actors, not to permit windfall awards to discrimination victims who [...]
