Hypercom to pay out $1.5m for sexual discrimination
Feb
3
Written by:
03/02/2012 12:20
Technology company defeated in court
In January this year a US federal jury awarded $1,474,000 to Lisa Shipley, the former senior vice president and managing director for North America of Hypercom Corp., including $1 million in punitive damages for sexual discrimination.
The eight-person jury decided that Hypercom, which was bought last year by industry competitor VeriFone, had intentionally discriminated against Shipley by denying her the same compensation, benefits and professional opportunities afforded to her male colleagues. The jury also concluded that the company retaliated against Shipley by suing her after she left to work for a competitor. Punitive and compensatory damages was capped by law at $300,000, but this did not affect an additional $150,000 the jury awarded for unpaid wages - a total of $450,000.
According to the website www.dailyreportonline.com Shipley and her attorneys were seeking an additional $750,000 in legal fees, claiming the case required "considerable effort and skill from Shipley's counsel to defeat 'the war of attrition' tactics of Hypercom" and its "efforts to multiply and complicate the proceedings." "They made Lisa fight and scrape and crawl on hands and knees across glass to win this case," said Chicago lawyer David B. Ritter, a partner at Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg who was co-counsel with Atlanta attorney Randall D. Grayson in the case. "They tried everything they could to win this claim, to demean her, to bankrupt her. And she prevailed because she was right."
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