Wrongful Termination Facts

After 14 years at Chipotle, manager Jeanette Ortiz filed a workers' compensation claim for carpal tunnel syndrome. Within months, she was accused of stealing $626 from the safe - caught on video, they said. When she asked to see the footage, Chipotle told her it had been destroyed. A jury awarded her $7.97 million.

Maria Gatchalian spent 30 years as a NICU nurse at Kaiser Permanente, repeatedly reporting unsafe staffing and patient safety failures. In 2019, Kaiser fired her - citing a photo of her with bare feet resting on an incubator during a break. A jury found the photo was a pretext. The real reason was the reports. They awarded her $41.49 million.

After 31 years at Liberty Mutual, senior case manager Joy Slagel was fired the day she returned from medical leave - over a paperwork mix-up on a Disney social media investigation. A Los Angeles jury awarded her $103 million in December 2025, the largest age discrimination verdict in US history. The jury found Liberty Mutual had acted with "malice or oppression."