Three former employees in a Northern California office of the Zurich American Insurance Co. who were fired after taking “off-the-record” paid leave were awarded more than $80 million in damages by a Sacramento jury on Thursday, Sacramento attorney Lawrance Bohm announced.
The case arose from a lawsuit originally filed in 2018 that went to trial after Zurich American rejected settlement offers starting at $150,000 for each of three plaintiffs who worked at the insurer’s Gold River offices, Bohm said in a interview.
“I’m jubilant,” Bohm said. “It is shocking that an American-based insurance company that provides coverage to 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies has made a zero dollar offer… This is vindication.”
Zurich-based U.S. spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said in an emailed response to The Sacramento Bee that the company does not comment on lawsuits: “So I have no comment to offer you.”
Wednesday’s verdict included damages for economic harm, reputational damage and $25 million in punitive damages for each of the employees — Melinda Brantley, Nicholas Lardie and Daniel Koos — who were part of Zurich American’s workers’ compensation department, Bohm spokesman Daniel Harary said at the announcement of the ruling. $80,252,412 judgment details.
Bohm’s spokesperson said the three plaintiffs were fired in December 2017 after following a supervisor’s policy of taking time off “off the record” as an incentive for hard work.
The days off were called “Omen Days,” in reference to then-Assistant Vice President Chris Omen, the court papers said.
“Omen offered free paid time off (“PTO”) based on performance,” the court papers said. “Employees in the Omen department called the free paid time off ‘Omen Days’.
“Omen’s free paid time off was used to reward employees who performed at a high level or achieved certain goals. The free paid leave awards did not require any requests or entries into the official PTO system.
“If an employee used paid leave approved by Omen, the employee was instructed not to use Zurich’s official paid time off. On most occasions. Omen instructed the employee to “take a day off or delete the leave requests in the system and stated that “it’s on me,” indicating that the employee deserved the free paid leave.
“The entire Rancho Cordova facility was aware of and benefited from this unofficial rewards program.”
The three were fired days before Christmas 2017 after a brief investigation by the company, Bohm said.
Zurich American argued in lawsuits that the employees were fired after “time theft,” which led to the three being paid a total of more than $100,000 over two years.
“Theft is not justified simply because your boss told you to do so,” the company argued. “Plaintiffs are three former managers at the Zurich insurance company who were discovered to have insufficient paid time off at work.
“They admitted to engaging in this activity and explained it away by saying their supervisor told them to do it.”
Bohm said Zurich American “maliciously defamed three very good people from our Sacramento community,” and that his clients did not want to be involved in a lawsuit.
Bohm initially offered to settle the case for $150,000 for each plaintiff but was rejected, he said. In 2021, he tried again and offered to settle for $500,000 each, but was turned down. Finally, before the trial began last month in Sacramento Superior Court, he offered to settle for $2 million per plaintiff but was told that wasn’t the case, he said.
“Zurich has had years to prevent this and do the right thing,” Bohm said, adding that company regulators spent 71 minutes investigating the allegations against the employees before firing them.
“For a company that prides itself on honesty, that’s scary,” he said. “Thousands of us in California have claims being handled by Zurich.
“If this is the way the company treats its employees, what does that mean for what we can expect from them when we need them?”
