DATELINE: California—where apparently $100 million verdicts are becoming so common that they barely qualify as news anymore.
As we have previously reported, California juries continue to hand down “nuclear” and even “thermonuclear” employment verdicts at an alarming rate. The latest addition to that growing list comes from San Diego, where a jury awarded a former substance abuse counselor $105 million after
In a welcome reminder that eye-popping punitive damage awards still face meaningful judicial scrutiny, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has struck down an $83 million punitive damages award that was entered against Liberty Mutual in Slagel v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. However, the court left intact a $20 million award for emotional distress damages associated with alleged age discrimination and harassment.
The case was
California—where the sun shines, the waves crash, and juries keep dishing out verdicts so large they should come with their own seismic scale. Since our Special Halloween Edition on California’s “scariest” employment law verdicts, the trend toward “nuclear” and even “thermonuclear” jury awards (exceeding $100 million) has not only continued—it’s accelerated. And if employers thought this was just a seasonal horror story, think again:
Barely a month into 2026, and a California jury has delivered another massive verdict in an employment case, awarding $52 million to five former employees following a whistleblower retaliation trial in Los Angeles. (Williams et al. v. Sysco Riverside, Inc.)
The plaintiffs, primarily drivers and yard personnel, worked for a global foodservice distributor. They alleged that they raised concerns during their employment regarding
As 2025 winds down, many employers are focused on year-end reviews, budget planning, and compliance checklists for the year ahead. But before turning the page on another year in California employment law, two recent jury verdicts serve as a sobering reminder of the continuing trend of nuclear verdicts as we have previously reported here, here, here, and here. Consider this your
Ah, California: land of Hollywood, high-tech, empty ocean roads, and—all too often these days—eye-popping jury verdicts. Employment litigation in California now rivals the state lottery as a source of multimillion-dollar payouts. We’ve previously reported on some of the more astonishing numbers (see here, here, and here), but they are only the tip of the iceberg.
Recent cases have led to single-plaintiff jury
As we have previously reported here and here, “nuclear” verdicts from California juries in employment discrimination and harassment cases have become increasingly common over the past few years. Although these massive verdicts garner a lot of attention, they are only part of the story after the verdict comes in.
For many successful plaintiffs, the journey to collect these awards is fraught with numerous delays
A California jury did it again! Last Thursday, a Los Angeles jury awarded $27.5 million to a former chief nursing officer of a hospital for the alleged post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological problems she suffered after being constructively discharged from her job. The nurse claimed she had been called to assist in an emergency at the hospital’s parking structure after a woman jumped from
On April 7, 2025, the California Court of Appeal reversed a whopping $10 million verdict in favor of an employee in a sexual harassment case due to the trial judge’s improper evidentiary rulings and inappropriate comments during the post-judgment phase of trial. Odom v. Los Angeles Cmty. Coll. Dist., No. B327997, 2025 WL 1021951, at *1 (Cal. Ct. App. Apr. 7, 2025).
Sabrena Odom
As 2024 came to a close, yet another California jury delivered a massive award to an individual plaintiff in an employment discrimination case. This time, it was an award of over $11 million by a San Diego jury to a medical screener at a plasma donation center (Roque v. Octapharma Plasma, Inc.). The 74-year-old plaintiff alleged that her employer failed to accommodate her