A company will have to pay USD 450 thousand to a former employee for a surprise birthday party

Thinking of throwing a surprise party for a co-worker? Think again, because as the saying goes, “there is no good deed that goes without its punishment.” This is how the former employers of a man in Kentucky (United States) must have felt when they received a lawsuit from the man who claimed to have suffered a panic attack during his surprise party.

Kevin Berling, 29, was working as a laboratory technician at Gravity Diagnostics in Covington, Kentucky when his colleagues decided to celebrate their birthday at lunchtime one day in August 2019.

Berling said that after the celebration he suffered a panic attack due to unwanted attention and the next day, after a tense episode, he was fired from Gravity Diagnostics. He later filed a lawsuit for compensation against the company, according to legal documents seen by The New York Post.

“Managers started giving him a hard time because of his response to birthday celebrations,” Berling's lawyer Tony Bucher told local television news channel WKRC. “In fact, they accused him of stealing the joy of his co-workers.”

Berling had allegedly asked the office manager not to throw him a birthday party when he first joined the company in 2018.

However, the manager “forgot” his request and the office festivities continued, which led to a panic attack in Berling. The man says he was forced to flee to his car, where he spent an hour trying to recover.

The next day, the company's bosses held a meeting with Berling to ask him about his behavior. That incident triggered a second panic attack.

Berling was fired from Gravity Diagnostics less than a week later, and bosses told him they were “worried that he would get angry and possibly become violent”.

Subsequently, the lab technician missed out on being part of the rapid growth of Gravity Diagnostics, which occurred during the COVID pandemic. At the time, some employees received increases of 300%, according to The Independent.

Then, the fired worker filed a lawsuit in Kenton County, seeking damages and compensation for lost income.

Bucher told WKRC that there was no chance that his client would become violent, saying that he was simply “using coping techniques to calm down” during his two panic attacks.

Last Friday, a jury of 12 people unanimously agreed to Berling and in this way, the company must award him USD 450,000.

The amount includes $120,000 in lost wages and benefits, $30,000 in future wages, and $300,000 for “past, present, and future mental pain and suffering, mental anguish, shame, humiliation, mortification, and loss of self-esteem,” according to the court. Judgment in favor of Berling.

The company, which denies any discrimination and says it was not informed of the employee's anxiety issues, will file an appeal, Maley explained.

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