Liberty Mutual Fired Her the Day She Got Back. The Jury Gave Her $103 Million.

Joy Slagel walked back into Liberty Mutual's Glendale office on June 30, 2016, after five weeks on medical leave. Her parking card did not work. Her badge did not work. She was called into a conference room and fired on the spot. Her laptop had already been collected by courier while she was away.

Thirty Years of Good Reviews

Slagel had started at Liberty Mutual in 1985. Over three decades she built a strong track record - in 2015 she won a customer service award for her work on a major account. According to testimony, her manager's response was that she had "got lucky" and it "would never happen again." That manager was Ariam Alemseghed, who had taken over as regional claims manager in 2012. After Alemseghed arrived, the atmosphere in the Glendale department changed fast.

120 Employees. Two Over Forty.

Before Alemseghed's arrival, the Glendale office had around 120 employees. By the time Slagel was fired, only two of those employees were over the age of 40. In June 2015, Slagel had formally reported that 15 people had left in the previous 12 months, telling HR she believed Alemseghed wanted long-term staff out to hire recent graduates. The report triggered an investigation. That investigation led to her firing.

The Disney Paper Trail

Liberty Mutual's stated reason for terminating Slagel was dishonesty and falsification of records - tied to a social media investigation for Disney's workers' compensation account. A social media check on a Disney claimant had been carried out in April 2015. When a supervisor asked for the report in August 2015 and again in April 2016, Slagel did not know the original investigator had never filed it. Rather than tell Disney the report was missing, she commissioned a new investigation and logged it under "medical" rather than "investigation" to avoid Disney noticing the gap. Liberty Mutual said that amounted to dishonesty. Slagel said it was a misunderstanding. The jury agreed with Slagel.

The Verdict That Set the Record

The case took almost nine years to reach a verdict. In December 2025, a Los Angeles jury found Liberty Mutual liable for age harassment, age discrimination, and retaliation. They awarded Slagel $15 million for past non-economic losses, $5 million for future non-economic losses, and $83 million in punitive damages - a total of $103 million. That punitive figure required the jury to find separately that Liberty Mutual had acted with "malice or oppression." They did. It is the largest age discrimination verdict ever recorded in the United States.

What $83 Million in Punitive Damages Means

Punitive damages at this scale are not about compensating a plaintiff - they are about sending a message. Lead attorney Justin Shegerian stated after the verdict: "This verdict is a resounding message to corporations nationwide: age discrimination is illegal, it is harmful, and juries will hold employers accountable." Liberty Mutual did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Slagel was replaced by someone in his 20s.