Employment Victories

Stroup & Lee v. United Air Lines. A federal jury awarded our clients, two former long-term flight attendants, a total of $410,000 in back pay damages on their Age Discrimination claims based on discriminatory wrongful discharge, and an additional equal amount in liquidated damages. The court further awarded a total of $620,000 in front pay and other damages, as well as over $500,000 in attorney fees, for a total award of approximately $2 million. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict in its entirety in February of 2022, and United paid the full amount. Stroup & Lee v. United Airlines, 26 F.4^th 1147 (10^th Cir. 2022).

McCroskey v. Colorado Anesthesia Associates, P.C. A federal jury awarded our client $1.7 million in compensatory and punitive damages based upon her allegations of retaliation for her opposition to what she believed to be sex discrimination and her constructive discharge. The court awarded attorney fees in addition to the judgment totaling over $200,000 and awarded further amounts for our client’s backpay losses. The case settled prior to appeal.

Khatib v. Executive Tower Corp. A Denver District Court jury awarded our client over $3.8 million for his constructive discharge of employment, based upon allegations of race discrimination, retaliation, breach of contract and wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. This included $2.2 million in punitive damages and $500,000 in emotional distress damages. Mr. Khatib was also entitled to his attorney fees and costs as the prevailing party in that litigation. The case settled pending appeal.

Simmons v. General Steel. A Jefferson County jury awarded our client over $1.4 million when she was fired for opposing her employer’s illegal practices, which were inconsistent with representations made to her by her employer at the outset of her employment. Notably, the company’s owner, Jeff Knight, was held jointly and severally liable based on the jury’s finding that he had intentionally interfered with Ms. Simmons’ employment relationship with the company. The judge was so outraged by the employer’s conduct in that case that he augmented the jury’s verdict by an additional $800,000 of punitive damages (doubling the jury’s punitive damages award for a total punitive damages award of $1.6 million). Coupled with $240,000 in economic losses, and about $350,000 in costs and interest, the total verdict was approximately $2.6 million.

Wunder v. Echo Bay Mines. An Arapahoe County jury awarded our client nearly $1.2 million in a case of fraudulent inducement of employment and failure to pay wages. The jury awarded $557,000 in actual economic losses, and that was despite the fact that our client received a severance payment upon his termination of nearly $580,000. The jury awarded an additional $557,000 in punitive damages.

Acosta-Ruiz v. Kurt Volkan and Brown-Palace Hotel. In 2018, our client settled her claims for sexual harassment and sex discrimination against her employer for a confidential amount. The case against her individual supervisor proceeded to trial in 2019. After a bench trial, Ms. Acosta-Ruiz was awarded a verdict in the amount of $2.24 million by Denver District Court Judge Andrew McCallin, including significant punitive damages, demonstrating that judges as well as juries are likely to speak loudly and clearly in response to illegal discriminatory behavior.

Minshall v. KMGH/Channel 7. A federal jury awarded our client over $562,000 based upon allegations of age discrimination. After attorney fees and costs were added, the total judgment approached $800,000. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that verdict in its entirety, and the defendant paid the verdict in full.

David v. Sirius Computer Solutions, Inc. A federal jury ruled in favor of our client determining that she had been wrongfully induced to leave her secure job to take a new job with the defendant company under false pretenses. The jury awarded her $231,665 in economic damages. Although the trial court denied her request for prejudgment interest, we appealed that denial and prevailed at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued an opinion that Ms. David was entitled to such additional damages. David v. Sirius Computer Solutions, Inc., 779 F.3d 1209 (10th Cir. 2015). Ms. David was awarded an additional amount of $139,625.95, for a total award of $371,291.

Whitaker v. Aspen Land & Homes, LLC, et al. Our client received a default judgment against her former employer, with the Court awarding damages of over $2.2 million based on claims including fraud, negligent  misrepresentation, breach of contract, and promissory estoppel after she was induced to enter into an employment agreement in reliance on fraudulent misrepresentations, and was then fired.

Confidential Client v. National Healthcare Provider. We represented a nursing executive for a national healthcare provider who was fired after she blew the whistle on illegal company conduct that threatened patient safety and involved fraudulent activity regarding Medicare and Medicaid payments. The case involved both individual claims and qui tam False Claims Act claims on behalf of the government. We obtained a confidential settlement of those claims in the amount of $1,300,000.

Hare v. Denver Merchandise Mart, 255 F. App’x 298 (10th Cir. 2007). We convinced the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the district court’s summary judgment against our client Darrell Hare in this age discrimination case where we represented the General Manager of the Denver Merchandise Mart who had been discriminatorily fired after 30 years on the job. The case settled favorably after the successful appeal.

In Frappied et al. v. Affinity Gaming Black Hawk, 966 F.3d 1038, 1055 (10th Cir. 2020), Killmer Lane lawyers Liana Orshan and Darold Killmer wrote and submitted to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the National Employment Lawyers Association and other organizations in a case involving sex and age discrimination against employees of a casino. In an important published 2020 opinion, the Tenth Circuit adopted the arguments and reasoning of our amicus brief almost in full and held for the first time that a claim for “sex-plus” discrimination—discrimination targeted at employees of a particular sex who all shared another characteristic (in this case, age) as well—is actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. By taking a stance on the viability of sex-plus-age claims, the Tenth Circuit became the first circuit court to weigh in on the debate among the lower federal courts. This leading Tenth Circuit opinion has been cited by other courts as a leading authority scores of times.

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