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Archived News and Events
- Adams Nye attorneys obtain $325,000 settlement in whistleblowing case.
- Adams Nye attorneys recently obtained a recovery of $325,000 for a white male who was discharged in retaliation for whistleblowing. Our client was fired after he about illegal discrimination against his co-employees. complained internally about discriminatory discharges of other employees, and was subsequently terminated. California law protects employees who raise the issue of potential illegality with their employers. We were successful despite the fact that our client was out of work only six weeks before finding a new job. Note: Because the settlement of this action is confidential, we are prohibited from providing additional details or information.
- Adams Nye attorneys secure $500,000 settlement for salesman denied commissions.
- Adams Nye attorneys recently obtained a $500,000 recovery for our client, a salesman whose employer fired him to avoid paying substantial commissions he was owed. While his employment contract specifically provided that commissions were due only while he was an employee, we were able to demonstrate that his firing was illegal because it violated public policy. Note: Because the settlement of this action is confidential, we are prohibited from providing additional details or information.
- Adams Nye attorneys settle disability discrimination case for more than $500,000
- Adams Nye has obtained more than $500,000 in damages and attorneys fees against the City of Benicia in a claim of disability discrimination involving one of its deputy city attorneys. Our client, who had good performance reviews, no warnings, and no indications that his performance was warning, requested reasonable accommodations from his supervisor because of his depression, for which he was receiving treatment. In response, the city of Benicia launched an ongoing tactical plan to terminate his employment. This included lengthy, extraordinarily critical performance evaluations containing references to incidents as petty and insignificant as his asking to borrow a pen at a meeting. These evaluations also attacked his performance on a project that previously had been praised, accused him of professional mistakes he had not made, and criticized pro bono work he had been authorized to perform. Finally, the city fired him. We obtained a settlement for him which, with court-ordered fees and costs, exceeded $500,000.
- Adams Nye Associate Publishes Sexual Harassment Article
- Our associate Michael Sachs was recently successful in obtaining publication of his article "The Homosexual Puzzle: How Courts Deal with Sexual Harassment Claims Brought by Homosexual Plaintiffs in American Sexuality." ( Click to See Michael's article ).
- Adams Nye Wins Discrimination Verdict
- In October 2004, our partners Barbara Adams and David Becht obtained a racial discrimination verdict for $1,842,943 against Sybase Corporation in Alameda County Superior Court. The case was Marietta Harvey v. Sybase Corporation. Our client, a senior human resources executive for Sybase and a native of the Philippines, was fired after the company's CEO stated that the department "looked like an airport." She then applied for two new human resources positions with lesser responsibilities and lower salaries than her previous job, but was neither interviewed nor hired for either of the positions. What she did not know, but the jury heard, was that the Vice President of Human Resources had told other employees that she was going to hire "two white males" for the positions, because of the CEO's "airport." remark. While Sybase posited various reasons for the firing, the jury found race discrimination, and awarded economic, non-economic and punitive damages to our client. A subsequent motion for attorney fees increased the verdict by over $600,000. After the verdict, Sybase appealed the jury's verdict. A decision by the Court of Appeal is expected in early 2007.
- Adams Nye Wins Sexual Harassment Verdict
- In March 2003, Bruce Nye obtained a $2.51 million verdict in Passeri v. Pacific life Insurance Company, a sexual harassment and constructive termination case tried in San Francisco Superior Court. Our client was a life insurance representative whose supervisor subjected her to an ongoing course of surreptitious groping during business meetings. When she complained, she was subjected to an intolerable course of sabotage and retaliation, and was eventually forced out of the company.
- Adams Nye Settled Sexual Harassment Against Major League Baseball Club
- In 2001, David Becht settled a lawsuit against a major league baseball organization involving 13 professional players in the team's Dominican Republic minor league team. The players were sexually harassed by the team's manager and Latin American scout who had threatened to wreck the players' careers unless they gave in to his demands for sexual favors. After two years of litigation, which reached the United States Supreme Court, the action resolved in a confidential settlement.
