Insurer must pay $80M to defamed former employees, Sacramento jury says

After less than two hours of deliberation, a Sacramento County jury awarded more than $80 million in punitive damages to three former employees of Zurich American Insurance Company who were accused by a company executive of lying about their paid time off.

"Our clients were three managers of claims adjusters for Zurich American Insurance Company, and, because of cronyism, the upper management wanted them out," Kelsey Ciarimboli, a partner at Bohm Law Group, said. "They decided to terminate them after their former boss had given them approved unofficial paid time off days as rewards for good performance."

O'Hagan Meyer law firm partner's Marcus J. Lee and Jessica Pliner represented the Zurich American. They were unavailable for comment.

According to the complaint, a vice president at the company sent out an email that accused Melinda Brantley, Daniel Koos and Nicholas Lardie of engaging in dishonest behavior and theft and said that they exhibited a total lack of leadership. Melinda Brantley v. Zurich American Insurance et al., 34-2018-00246315, (Sac. Super., filed Dec. 12, 2018)

The email was sent to four people in the company.

"They conspired to do this, and they completely defamed these amazing people," Ciarimboli said. "They fired three amazing people in the most vicious malicious way to get them out of the way. This is what California laws are built for. This is why we do this job."