Veronese v. Lucasfilm Ltd.

[4]Opinion

RICHMAN, J. This is an employment discrimination case, specifically pregnancy discrimination. It is an unusual case in several respects, including that the interactions between plaintiff and defendant’s representatives were relatively brief, over a period of less than four months; save for four in-person interviews or meetings and a handful of telephone calls, those interactions were all via e-mail; and plaintiff never worked one day in defendant’s employ.

Plaintiff Julie Gilman Veronese sued defendant Lucasfilm Ltd. (Lucasfilm), alleging six causes of action. Following 11 days of testimony, five causes of action were submitted to the jury in a special verdict form. After three days of deliberation, the jury found for Veronese on three claims—pregnancy discrimination, failure to prevent pregnancy discrimination, and wrongful termination in violation of public policy. The jury found for Lucasfilm on the other two claims—retaliation and failure to accommodate disability. The jury awarded Veronese $93,830 for past economic damages and $20,000 for noneconomic damages, a total of $113,830. The trial court later awarded Veronese $1,157,411 in attorney fees.

Lucasfilm appeals from both the judgment and the fee award. The former appeal makes two arguments, the first asserting six separate claims of instructional error: the giving of two erroneous instructions, the refusal to give two proper instructions, and the failure to instruct on the elements of two of the claims submitted to the jury. Lucasfilm’s second argument is that the damages awarded were the result of juror misconduct and have no support in the record. We agree there was instruction error, and conclude it was prejudicial. We thus reverse the judgment and vacate the attorney fee order.

BACKGROUND

Introduction

As indicated, the relationship between the parties here was brief, and most of the interactions between them were in e-mails, the effect of which is that many of the facts could be said to be undisputed, especially as, with one exception, there was little disagreement as to the in-person interactions and the telephone calls. But whether undisputed or not, to the extent there are differing versions of what occurred, the appeal involves issues relating to jury instructions, and the prejudicial effect of any such error. Thus, “ ‘[W]e do not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the successful [party] and