Sayger v. Riceland Foods, Inc., No. 12-3301 (8th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit against Riceland, alleging retaliatory discharge after being a witness in an internal investigation into a complaint about a manager. A jury subsequently awarded plaintiff approximately $60,000 in compensatory damages and back pay in regards to his 42 U.S.C. 1981 claim. The court concluded that the district court properly denied Riceland's motion for judgment where the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find retaliation; the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's Title VII claim where, even if plaintiff had properly preserved this claim on appeal, the claim was untimely; it was not necessary to address the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's state law claim because the state statute would not entitle plaintiff to any additional relief beyond his section 1981 claim; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial on punitive damages; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying plaintiff's request for reinstatement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Civil case - Employment Discrimination. In an action alleging plaintiff had been terminated in retaliation for supporting the race discrimination complaints of two African American co-workers, plaintiff presented sufficient evidence of causation for a jury to find he would not have been dismissed had he not served as a witness for the co-workers, and the evidence was sufficient for a jury to find that the employer's stated grounds for plaintiff's termination was a pretext; regarding plaintiff's cross-appeal, plaintiff failed to preserve his Title VII claim on appeal and, even if he had preserved it, the district court did not err in dismissing it as untimely; the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial on punitive damages as he failed to establish malice or reckless indifference with respect to the employer's knowledge that it was acting in violation of federal law; district court did not abuse its discretion by denying plaintiff's request for reinstatement.
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