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OPINION ONLY

This is the crux of the Vanender vz Sheets Inc case which ATRA has distorted, and then widely promoted as a case where an employee of a grocery store received $3.5 million in damages because she strained her back opening a pickle jar.

Some key documents

1997: Vandevender v. Sheetz, Inc., 490 S.E.2d 678 (West Virginia 1997)

1997 Aug: A West Virginia convenience store worker Cheryl Vanevender [aka Vanender] was awarded an astonishing $2,699,000 in punitive damages after she injured her back when she opened a pickle jar, according to the Charleston Daily Mail. She also received $130,066 in compensation and $170,000 for emotional distress.

    The State Supreme Court Justice Spike Maynard called this award an "outrageous sum," stating in his dissenting opinion: "I know an excessive punitive damages award when I see one, and I see one here."

    The court, however, upheld most of the punitive damages: $ 2.2 million.
    [Source: Legal Briefs, Issue Seven, August 15, 1997]

[Legal Briefs is published by the National Center for Public Policy Research run by Amy Moritz Ridenour, an ex-Philip Morris employed lobbyist. She now runs this tobacco- and industry-funded, right-wing think-tank in Washington, and the NCPPR has become the source for many of ATRA's stories]

1998: Marc Galanter says "Although the name was slightly off, I was able to find the West Virginia Supreme Court decision in this case." Vanevender was suing her previous employer, a very large convenience store franchaise chain, Sheetz, Inc.

    The trial court had found punitive damages justified by

• the defendant's illegal course of conduct for a period of nearly five years...including
• refusing to accommodate plaintiff's work restrictions,
• refusing to reinstate plaintiff after suffering a compensable workplace injury,
• discharging plaintiff from employment,
• refusing to rehire plaintiff...
• retaliating against a manager who testified contrary to defendant Sheetz, Inc.'s position and
• retaliating against plaintiff upon her negotiated return to work by requiring her to perform work activities which defendant's managers knew she could not perform without risking re-aggravating her injuries or causing new injury.

• ratio of punitive to compensatory damages excessive, on both
  • the unlawful termination
  • failure to rehire claims
        They found that the evidence was insufficient to show that these actions were prompted by malice or involved fraud, trickery or deceit.
• However, with regard to the retaliation claim, the court upheld the verdict's high ratio since it found that Sheetz had "crossed the line from reckless disregard of an individual's rights, to willful, mean-spirited acts indicative of an intent to cause physical or emotional harm."

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