Evidence including a “smoking e-mail” has helped persuade a Cleveland jury to award a record $46.6 million to a former trash company manager who was fired after he refused to dismiss three employees, all of whom were about 60 years of age.

Ronald Luri, 55, alleged in his wrongful termination case that not only did Republic Services Co. (NYSE: RSG) retaliate against him for engaging in the “protected activity” of complying with age discrimination law, but it also blocked his efforts to find another job in the Cleveland area.

The jury award –- the largest in Ohio history -– includes $3.5 million in compensation for Luri's lost wages as general manager of Republic's Cleveland office and $43.1 million in punitive damages. “I stood up for the rights of my employees and I was penalized for it,” Luri told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer after the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas jury reached its verdict last week.

Jurors said the key evidence was an e-mail memo written by Luri's boss, Jim Bowen. A computer forensics expert testified that Bowen had post-dated the memo and added criticism of Luri's job performance two weeks after Luri filed the lawsuit in August 2007.

“They blocked every opportunity for him to get another job,” one juror said.

Bowen took over as Republic's Ohio area president in August 2006 and, according to the complaint, told Luri two months later to fire Frank Pascuzzi, George Fiser and Louis Darienzo, specifying that Pascuzzi, who was more than 60 years old, should be replaced as controller with “a substantially younger” employee.

Luri refused to fire the employees, warning Bowen, the suit said, that they could sue the company for age discrimination. Bowen terminated him in April 2007.

“A causal connection exists between the protected activity and the adverse [employment] action given that, among other things, Mr. Bowen specifically told Mr. Luri ... that he was being terminated because he refused to terminate Mr. Pascuzzi,” Luri alleged.

Republic, which is based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., will appeal the verdict. It had argued that Luri filed his suit because of “nothing more than his badly bruised ego” -- he was passed over for the area president job in favor of Bowen.

“There was no merit for this jury to award this amount based on the evidence presented at trial,” a company spokesman said. “This case is far from over.”

The ratio of punitive to compensatory damages –- which is more than 12:1 –- may indeed be a little high. But the evidence-tampering alone deserved a stiff penalty.

As the Ohio Employer's Law Blog put it, “Nothing will anger a jury more than a company that looks like it is trying to cover [up] its actions, either by destroying damaging documents or creating helpful ones.”

A pending $6 billion merger with Allied Waste Industries will make Republic the second-largest trash hauler in the U.S. The company earned $290 million last year on revenue of $3.2 billion.

By Matthew Heller
7/8/08