Why Court awarded truck driver $34.7m in Walmart defamation lawsuit

A California jury awarded a former Walmart truck driver, Jesus “Jesse” Fonseca, $34.7 million after concluding that the company defamed him by wrongfully accusing him of violating its integrity rules while on medical leave. 

The verdict, delivered on Wednesday by the San Bernardino County Superior Court, comprised $25 million in punitive damages and $9.7 million in compensatory damages.

Fonseca, a Walmart employee for 14 years and a one-time face of the company’s national trucking campaign, was injured on the job in 2017 and placed on workers’ compensation leave.

Doctors restricted him from driving large trucks or engaging in strenuous activities. Despite informing Walmart’s workers’ compensation administrator about his plans to go on a family camping trip in an RV and a cruise for his wedding anniversary, the company initiated an investigation.

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Under surveillance, Fonseca was videotaped driving the RV and bending, activities deemed outside his medical restrictions. Walmart’s internal fraud investigator found Fonseca’s explanations credible, determining there was no evidence of intentional dishonesty.

However, the company’s ethics department bypassed the investigator’s findings and fired Fonseca, labelling his actions a violation of Walmart’s integrity policy.

Fonseca sued in 2019, alleging the company defamed him and caused irreparable harm to his reputation and livelihood. During the trial, testimony revealed that Walmart’s ethics department categorised any activity outside medical restrictions as intentional dishonesty, regardless of the absence of deceit.

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David deRubertis, Fonseca’s lead trial attorney, who praised the jury’s decision said, “We hope that this courageous jury’s message will make its way all the way to Bentonville so that Walmart will change this malicious policy of defaming injured workers like Jesse who did nothing wrong.”

Walmart has, however, expressed its disagreement with the verdict, stating, “This outrageous verdict simply does not reflect the straightforward and uncontested facts of this case. Accordingly, we will pursue all available remedies.”