No Horseplay Here: Jury Awards Employee $2.4 Million in Damages for Sex Discrimination

A company’s potential monetary liability for workplace discrimination can be crippling. A jury in the U.S. District for the Northern District of Illinois had awarded a male grocery store butcher $2.4 million in compensatory and punitive damages on his claim of sexual harassment against a small grocery store located in the south side of Chicago. The lower court ultimately reduced the award to $477,500, because of Title VII’s statutory damage caps and the excessiveness of the award. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has affirmed the award. Smith v. Rosebud Farm, Inc., No. 17-2626, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 21481 (7th Cir. Aug. 2, 2018).