A Kentucky jury has awarded $450,000 to a man for lost wages and mental anguish after he sued a former company that celebrated his birthday despite his requests not to do so due to his anxiety disorder.
Kevin Berling had been working at Diagnostics in Covington for 10 months when in 2019 he asked his manager not to hold a birthday celebration as he feared it would cause him immense stress and lead to a panic attack, according to The Washington Post. However this message was not relayed to the person tasked with handling birthday celebrations, the outlet noted citing court documents.
On Aug. 7, 2019, Berling went to work to discover a birthday party had been arranged for him. According to reports, Berling exited the building and fled to his car where he had a panic attack. The following day Berling sat in a meeting with his supervisor, Amy Blackburn, and the company’s director of business operations, Ted Knauf.
In a deposition, Blackburn described Berling as turning tense, saying that he turned "very red" as he closed his eyes and clenched his fists, The Post reported. Blackburn said she feared he "was going to literally strike her." He did not however and was instead sent home until the following Monday. Later, the chief operating officer decided to fire him.
Berling's lawyer, Tony Bucher, however told WKRC that the company "started giving him a pretty hard time for his response to the birthday celebration, actually accusing him of stealing his co-workers' joy."
Bucher told the Post there was no evidence that Berling "had ever exhibited any violent tendencies or that he had ever engaged in any threatening behavior."
"He had a panic attack, and Gravity Diagnostics made no attempt to try to understand his panic response," he continued. "Instead, Gravity Diagnostics assumed that he posed a threat and terminated his employment based on those unfounded and discriminatory assumptions."
On Friday a jury awarded Berling $450,000 in damages, including $300,000 for mental anguish, WKRC reported. A spokesperson for Gravity Diagnostics told The Post that the company plans to appeal "this improper verdict."
In a statement, the spokesperson said that Berling never disclosed he had anxiety or suffered from panic attacks, adding that he was not fired over either of those things but because of how he behaved after the birthday celebration.”
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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