Employee Gets Awarded $450,000 In Unjust Firing After Unwanted Birthday Party Triggers Anxiety Attack

Due to his anxiety illness, Kentucky resident Kevin Berling asked his employer not to throw him the customary employee birthday celebration in 2019. He said that doing so would result in a panic attack. Although originally agreeing to his request, Gravity Diagnostics surprised Berling with a lunch party on August 7 of that year, which led Berling to suffer a panic attack and eat his lunch in his car by himself. Being naturally furious that his lodging wasn’t provided, he texted the manager.

According to the lawsuit that was brought against the corporation in a Kenton County court, the business regularly celebrates the birthdays of each of its employees. Berling was called into a meeting the day following the party-related panic attack, where he “was confronted and reprimanded” for having one.
The lawsuit claims that “this interaction brought on yet another panic attack. Plaintiff was sent home from work for the duration of August 8 and August 9 because she had a panic attack following this encounter.

A few days later, he received a letter announcing his termination, with the “events of the prior week” listed as the reason. Berling filed a lawsuit against Gravity Diagnostics, alleging retaliation for his unlawful firing and disability discrimination. Towards the end of March of this year, the case was heard in court, and Berling was given a $450,000 damage award, including $300k for emotional anguish and $150k for lost wages. According to court documents, the jury determined that Berling had experienced an “adverse employment action” as a result of his anxiety impairment.

Berling was fired for breaking a “workplace violence policy,” according to Julie Brazil, the founder and chief operating officer of Gravity Diagnostics, who spoke to LINK nky. She continued by saying that the business stands by its choice to let him go.

Brazil stated that Berling’s panic attacks were viewed as workplace aggression by her coworkers.

She said, “My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do.”

In the meantime, Tony Bucher, Berling’s attorney, told the jury that his client did not constitute a threat to his employees.

“I think the significance for employers is that they need to understand that they shouldn’t make assumptions about individuals with mental health issues,” Bucher said in a statement. “Kevin was an exceptional employee that went above and beyond for his employer and if they would have taken a step back it would have been clear that he did not present any danger at all.”

Now that you have read the story. it’s time for you to see what Redditors had to say on this. Read till the end to see what are other people’s opinions on this. Don’t forget to share your own opinion at the end of this article too.

True

It really is terrible

Could not agree more with the last line

People who don’t have anxiety cannot understand how it feels like

Companies really have no thoughts