On November 18, 2024, Judge Juliet McKenna denied International Golden Foods LLC’s (IGF) motion to reverse a $930,000 jury verdict in favor of Correia & Puth client Diana Portillo. In their verdict, the jury found that IGF subjected Ms. Portillo to a hostile work environment because she is a transgender woman and retaliated against her after she complained of discrimination, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act, awarding her $930,000 in damages.
At trial, Correia & Puth attorneys Jonathan C. Puth and Andrew M. Adelman proved that Ms. Portillo was harassed because of her gender identity and retaliated against after complaining of discrimination. During her time working at a McDonald’s franchise on Georgia Avenue, N.W., Portillo’s managers persisted in using a male name and pronoun for Ms. Portillo and ridiculed her for being transgender. After a supervisor openly confronted her for using the women’s room, yelling “What are you doing using the female bathroom?” and “You’re not a woman, you’re a man,” Portillo complained of discrimination. Eight days later, she was fired. The jury in her case found that IGF had violated the D.C. Human Rights Act, which protects employees from discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender identity and prohibits retaliation against employees who complain of discrimination. The jury’s $930,000 award is believed to be the first jury verdict in a transgender employment discrimination case under the D.C. Human Rights Act.
In their Motion, IGF first sought to reverse the jury’s verdict on Ms. Portillo’s claim of retaliation, arguing that “because Ms. Portillo was not legally authorized to work in the United States, there were no grounds upon which a reasonable jury could find that she suffered an adverse employment action or that her termination was retaliatory.” The court was not persuaded, finding that “at trial, Plaintiff presented evidence that IGF higher-level supervisory personnel were previously aware that she lacked proper work authorization yet proceeded to hire and employ her for years, and knowingly employed other undocumented workers.” The court held that the “sweeping protections afforded by the D.C. Human Rights Act” protect all employees, including those who lack legal work authorization. It also found that the evidence at trial supported the jury’s finding that Ms. Portillo’s complaints of discrimination were a substantial factor in IGF’s decision to terminate her employment, in violation of the DCHRA, regardless of whether Ms. Portillo’s lack of work authorization also factored into that decision.
The court also rejected IGF’s effort to throw out the jury’s $700,000 punitive damages award. It found that there was “abundant evidence of the egregious actions and inactions of IGF’s managers and supervisors, which created and promoted a hostile work environment in which Ms. Portillo was subjected to persistent misgendering, ridicule, and humiliation for over two years, despite her written and verbal pleas to cease the mistreatment.” Further, the court found that the evidence supporting Plaintiff’s retaliation claim “reflects reprehensible behavior by IGF in knowingly hiring workers– including Ms. Portillo– who lacked proper work authorization, invoking their undocumented status to threaten and control them, and using Ms. Portillo’s admission that she was not legally authorized to work in the United States to justify her termination, while simultaneously continuing to employ other undocumented workers.” The court went on: “In finding for Plaintiff on the retaliation claim, the jury clearly rejected Defendant’s proffered justification for her termination as pretextual, further supporting a clear and convincing finding that IGF acted with malice, willful disregard and/or reckless indifference,” the standard for an award of punitive damages. The court found that the jury’s $700,000 punitive damages award was reasonable and proportionate to the Defendant’s reprehensible conduct and the wrong committed.
Read the court’s order here.
