From NYDailyNews.com:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Muslim woman who was fired from her job with AT&T says years of harassment hit a peak when her boss snatched her scarf from her head and exposed her hair.
A jury awarded former Kansas City resident Susann Bashir $5 million in punitive damages Thursday, along with $120,000 in lost wages and other actual damages.
The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/JKWbqR) reports the award appears to be the largest jury verdict in a workplace discrimination case in Missouri history.
Bashir says the harassment began soon after she converted to Islam in 2005. She was fired after she left work in 2008 because of stress after filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and then didn’t come back for nine months.
AT&T says it plans to appeal.
Five million dollars in an award for a person who is still alive. About hair.
Having worked Homicide for many years, I know I’ve acquired much less from those who dealt with both the living and the dead.
I cannot help but wonder: if you tag me with a $5 million dollar debt, what keeps me from simply killing you? About hair?
Because, in the tort cases I’m seeing these past years, a living victim simply makes much more than a dead victim.
That should be a massive clue.
BZ
