“We believe the punitive damages award is a message that an employer cannot terminate and replace employees in order to achieve greater diversity in the …
“We believe the punitive damages award is a message that an employer cannot terminate and replace employees in order to achieve greater diversity in the workforce.” On Tuesday, a marketing and communications executive who lost his job at a North Carolina-based health care system and claimed it was because he was a white male was awarded $10 million by a federal jury. In his 2019 lawsuit, David Duvall argued that Novant Health’s diversity efforts led to him being replaced in July 2018. “The jury said that Duvall proved that his race and gender were motivating factors in Novant Health’s decision to terminate him, according to the jury’s verdict form. The jury also indicated that Novant Health failed to prove that it would have dismissed Duvall regardless of his race,” the Winston-Salem Journal reported. “Duvall said in his lawsuit that he was fired in 2018 without warning or explanation shortly before his fifth anniversary with the company. He said he was replaced by two women, one Black and one white.
