Plaintiffs awarded $61 million
in Fedex Ground discrimination suit

By Angela Hokanson, Bay City News Service

June 5, 2006

OAKLAND (BCN) - Two Lebanese-American FedEx Ground drivers were awarded $61 million in punitive and compensatory damages after an Alameda County Superior Court jury found the company and a manager liable for ethnic discrimination and harassment, according to the Dolan Law Firm, which represented the plaintiffs.

On May 24, the drivers, Edgar Rizkallah and Kamil Issa, were awarded $11 million in emotional distress compensatory damages after their lawyer demonstrated during trial that the two men had been victims of ongoing harassment.

Their manager, Stacey Shoun, had allegedly taunted them with racial epithets, calling the two men "camel jockeys,'' "terrorists,'' "sand niggers'' and other ethnic slurs.

The $50 million award came Friday in the second phase of the trial and was based on a finding that FedEx Ground and Shoun acted with oppression and malice in the treatment of the two plaintiffs, according to attorney Christopher Dolan of the Dolan Law Firm.

The jury held Shoun personally liable for $1 million in emotional distress damages and $5,600 in punitive damages.

According to Dolan, evidence presented in the trial showed that the plaintiffs had reported the harassment to the company and that FedEx Ground failed to prevent or correct the problem. The company had also failed to provide managers with anti discrimination training before and after complaints were filed.

In California, people who engage in workplace harassment can be held personally liable in addition to the employer being held liable. An employer can be held liable for workplace discrimination if they know or should have known and failed to prevent or stop harassment.

In 2000 the California legislator extended protection from workplace harassment to independent contractors. Prior to 2000 the law only protected employees.

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