I know I’m not the only one who has genuinely hoped to fall through a sidewalk grate, brake a couple bones, get a fat payout from the city, and leave this life behind. At this point, I’m one company-wide ra-ra meeting away from walking in front of a city bus.
But this isn’t about me. My day has not come yet.
Jeanette Ortiz, on the other hand, is likely sleeping on a bed of Benjamins right now after the former Chipotle manager sued the restaurant for wrongful termination and won. Big time. Like $8 million big time.
Ortiz was managing a California Chipotle in 2015 when she was accused of stealing more than $626 and fired. According to the New York Post, Ortiz’s bosses claimed the theft was caught on camera, but she was never shown the video because they told her the tapes had been destroyed.
Ortiz filed a wrongful termination suit and after four hours of deliberation, a California jury agreed with her, ordering the Mexican restaurant chain to pay her $7.97 million in damages–$6 million for emotional distress and $1.97 million for loss of wages.
But the plot thickens. The jury found that the chain drummed up a scheme to slander her for filing a worker’s compensation claim for a wrist injury caused by carpal tunnel syndrome made worse by her job.
Lets assume that Ortiz was getting paid $40,000/year as her job as a manager at Chipotle. She would have to work for 199 YEARS to pull in the cash she was awarded from the settlement.
[h/t NY Post]