A California jury has ordered Walmart to pay $34.7 million to a former truck driver for the company after finding that it had defamed him by falsely accusing him of workers’ compensation fraud.
The San Bernardino County Superior Court verdict was delivered after a two-phase trial that lasted four weeks.
On Tuesday, the jury awarded $9.7 million in compensatory damages for Jesus Fonseca’s lost wages, benefits, and reputational harm, as well as $25 million in punitive damages to penalize Walmart and deter similar actions in the future.
Fonseca, who worked for Walmart’s trucking division for 14 years, was terminated in 2018 following an internal investigation. His troubles began after he filed a workers’ compensation claim for injuries sustained in a rear-end collision while on the job. Fonseca had informed Walmart that he would be taking two pre-planned family vacations, one of which involved RV camping.
Surveillance initiated by Walmart’s workers’ compensation adjuster captured brief footage of Fonseca bending and driving his RV camper. According to court documents, this footage triggered an internal fraud investigation despite no evidence that Fonseca violated his medical restrictions, which only prohibited commercial driving.
According to court documents, Walmart’s fraud investigator found no wrongdoing and deemed Fonseca credible. However, the ethics department overruled the findings, concluding that Fonseca committed “intentional dishonesty,” a violation of Walmart’s integrity policy.
The resulting termination left Fonseca struggling to find work, as he was forced to disclose Walmart’s allegations during job interviews, the lawsuit stated. His legal team argued that Walmart used these tactics as part of a broader policy to remove injured employees and cut workers’ compensation costs.
“Jesse’s termination based on this malicious defamation resulted from a policy to defame created by Walmart which took innocent behavior or simple misunderstanding and spun it into a false accusation of ‘intentional dishonesty,’” deRubertis said. “This diligent jury saw the truth and agreed that this was malicious defamation.”
The damages included $1.2 million for lost wages and benefits and $8.5 million for emotional distress, as well as $25 million in punitive damages. DeRubertis said the punitive amount underscored the jury’s intent to hold Walmart accountable for its actions.
Walmart told The Epoch Times that it disagrees with the decision and “will pursue all available remedies.”
“This outrageous verdict simply does not reflect the straightforward and uncontested facts of this case,” in an emailed statement.
