Kevin Berling of Louisville, Kentucky has successfully sued the company he was working for to the amount of $450,000……… because they threw him a birthday party.
To be fair, he did ask them not to. Kevin suffers from anxiety attacks disorders and panic attacks. He told them it would cause immense stress because it would bring back bad memories from his childhood and parents’ divorce.
But whoever is in charge there forgot about his request. Then they threw a party. This gave Kevin a panic attack. If there had been an apology it probably could have been left at that.
But nope. The next day his supervisor brought Kevin in for a talk about it. Not to apologize, rather, he laid into Kevin, saying Kevin acted like a little girl and blaming Kevin for stealing his co-workers joy. That sent Kevin into another panic attack. So, then they fired him. The reason they gave for firing him is they felt he might be angry and bring violence to the work place. And now Kevin gets $300,000 for emotional distress and another $150,000 for lost wages. As far as I know, the supervisor still has a job.
The CEO of the company is still laying the blame on Kevin. She released a statement saying, “with ever-increasing incidents of workplace violence, this verdict sets a very dangerous precedent for employers and most importantly employees that unless physical violence actually occurs, workplace violence is acceptable.”