Jury awards Cleveland woman $900K in age discrimination employment case
CLEVELAND, OH - A Cleveland jury in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Wednesday returned a $900,000 verdict in a significant employment discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee of Cleveland's University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The lawsuit filed by Gloria Parks against University Hospitals alleged that Parks, a medical assistant, was discriminated against because of her age when she was terminated from her job of 30 years in July of 2008.
After a seven-day trial in the courtroom of Judge Carolyn Friedland, the jury found that age was a determining factor in University Hospitals' decision to terminate Ms. Parks' employment. Parks was awarded $450,000 for her economic loss and $450,000 for other compensatory damages.
"We are thrilled that Gloria Parks received the justice that she deserved from the jury", said renowned civil rights lawyer Ellen S. Simon, of counsel with McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Liffman, and lead attorney on this case. "Nothing could be better than to see Ms. Parks have the opportunity to be vindicated. What happened to Gloria was tragic and shouldn't happen to anyone."
Parks' lawsuit charged that her termination stemmed from a patient identification incident in July of 2008, involving Parks and a younger co-worker in the pre-admission testing department where they both worked. The mix-up occurred when two patients with the identical name appeared at the department on the same morning to get their blood drawn. UH claimed that Parks failed to follow the proper patient identification policy, but witnesses testified that the policy was not enforced in the department and not properly followed by the employee who checked the patient in that day, pulled the wrong medical chart, and passed it off to Parks.
