A man has been given a payout of over £345,000 ($450,000) after he was given a surprise birthday party at work that led to him having a panic attack.
Kevin Berling, 29, was a lab technician at Gravity Diagnostics, in Covington, Kentucky, when he was given an unexpected birthday party in August, 2019.
But rather than it being a fun occasion for Mr Berling, he suffered a panic attack from all the focus on him from the other workers, it is reported.
And it went from bad to worse, claimed Mr Berling’s lawyer Tony Bucher who said that he was afterwards treated badly by the company bosses before being fired.
Mr Berling then went on to claim for compensation.
“Managers started giving him a hard time for his response to the birthday celebrations,” Berling’s attorney, Tony Bucher, told local TV news outlet WKRC. “They actually accused him of stealing his co-workers’ joy.”
It is alleged that Berling had also told the office manager when he joined the company in 2018 that he did not want any birthday parties for him but that his boss “forgot” this.
Then when the party took place, Berling left the building and spent an hour in his car where he tried to recover from the panic attack.
The following day he suffered another panic attack when his bosses questioned him over his behaviour, reported the New York Post.
And a week later he was reportedly sacked on the grounds that they were “worried about him being angry and possibly becoming violent.”
The hefty payout also took into account the massive growth of Gravity Diagnostics’ during the Covid pandemic when some of the employees received 300% pay increases.
Mr Bearing took his case for compensation over lost income and damages to Kenton County court.
A 12-person jury unanimously awarded Berling a $450,000 judgement against the company last Friday.
The amount covered $120,000 in lost wages and benefits, $30,000 in future wages, and $300,000 for “past, present and future mental pain and suffering, mental anguish, embarrassment, humiliation, mortification, and loss of self-esteem,” according to the court’s judgment in Berling’s favor.
