Members of Messer Caparello’s litigation team, Bob Harris, Jim Dean, and Nicholas Cleary, recently secured a jury verdict of no liability for its client in an employment discrimination and negligent supervision/retention case.
The case, filed back in 2017, originally involved multiple defendants and claims, including negligent hiring, battery and assault. The female Plaintiff in the case alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a former female coworker while on the job and that her then-employer negligently supervised and retained the alleged perpetrator.
Through motion practice, Messer Caparello’s litigation team whittled the Plaintiff’s case down to a single Defendant, and a single negligent supervision/retention claim. The case proceeded to a three-day jury trial where the Plaintiff was demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. The jury rendered a verdict of no liability for the Firm’s client, awarding the Plaintiff zero dollars.
The Firm’s defense team was able to protect its client, a mom-and-pop barber and cosmetology school, from a damaging jury award that could have crippled the school’s operations.