After an eight-year-long criminal combat, a former Omni Hotels and Resorts worker was once awarded $25.1 million in compensatory and punitive damages by means of a federal jury.
DALLAS — A former Omni Hotels worker received a $25.1 million jury award for salary discrimination in Dallas federal courtroom following an eight-year-long criminal combat.
“It’s overwhelming. I feel I have a little bit of self-respect back. I feel that it’s healing and I can hold my head up a little high again,” Sarah Lindsley, 48, instructed WFAA following a federal district jury trial.
“I was just continually blocked along the way,” Lindsley stated. “I was put down as a woman. I was disrespected as a woman, as being a single mother. I just put my head down, tried to work harder, tried to prove myself for years and years.”
Lindsley labored at Omni places in Tucson, Arizona and Corpus Christi, Texas. Although she labored her means up from a server to one among simply 4 feminine meals & beverage administrators amongst Omni’s fifty-plus homes, she claimed she was once “paid less than men who had the same title and did the same work,” her swimsuit stated.
The lawsuit alleged that it was once a part of the “’boys club’ culture that permeated Omni’s Food & Beverage Division.”
“I had gone to HR countless times,” Lindsley recalled. “I had gone to my managers countless times at trial, I tried to follow the chain of command the entire time I was there. Nothing was done, and I felt trapped as if I didn’t have a choice.”
The jury award is against Omni Hotels & Resorts and TRT Holdings, Inc.
In a remark, Omni Hotels and Resorts tells WFAA, “The proceedings remain ongoing and there is no judgment yet in this case. Accordingly, we are unable to comment on the specifics. However, we vigorously deny these claims and affirm that Omni Hotels & Resorts does not stand for discrimination in any way. We have every confidence that we will prevail as the judicial process plays out.”
“There were multiple times along the way where there were opportunities to resolve this case, opportunities for the parties to move on,” stated Jay Ellwanger, Lindsley’s lawyer at Ellwanger Henderson. “And time and time and time again, Omni just wasn’t interested and they didn’t want to talk, and they just wanted to try to prove a point through continuing to litigate with us.”
“And having a client that, like Ms. Lindsley, (who) was willing to persevere for eight years through all of those ups and downs,” Ellwanger stated. “It’s really a unique situation and I think it speaks to how brave she is.”
Ellwanger and his regulation spouse, David Henderson, instructed WFAA that they by no means requested the jury for a selected award.
“It’s important to treat people fairly at work,” Henderson stated. “And that’s what their verdict means…The jury thinks about what’s best for society as a whole. And part of what they did yesterday is they said it’s best for society as a whole.”
“It’s been an eight-year journey for her,” stated Monica Hincken, a senior go along with Valli, Kane & Vagnini. “Throughout the entire journey, she has been focused on being an advocate for other women and what this could mean for the industry and for other women in particular. She’s always been focused on the larger picture, and for that, we’ve been really proud of her and we think that this verdict really supports that.”
Lindsley started her 16-year-career with Omni Hotels and Resorts as a server on the Omni Tucson National Resort and labored her means as much as an hourly manager inside the hotel’s meals and beverage department, then to a supervisor and normal supervisor on the hotel’s steakhouse in 2009.
In 2010 she labored because the assistant director of the meals and beverage department on the Omni Hotel in Corpus Christi.
She says her beginning wage as meals and beverage director was once less than her male opposite numbers’ salaries. She lodged lawsuits with the corporate however didn’t obtain wage will increase.
“I attempted to do the whole lot by means of the e-book and not anything was once converting,” Lindsley stated. “In fact, it was getting worse at this point.”
In September 2015, she filed a discrimination criticism with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The EEOC discovered “there is reason to believe that violations occurred.”
She filed a lawsuit, and the courtroom granted Omni’s movement for abstract judgment brushing aside her claims. But she appealed and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the abstract judgment.
Then, she in the end went to trial, and a federal district courtroom jury of 5 males and 3 ladies awarded $100,000 for previous ache and struggling and psychological anguish and an extra $25 million in punitive damages.
A federal regulation might cap compensatory and punitive damages at $300,000.
“Today I’m just extremely happy, grateful, thankful, humbled, too,” when requested concerning the verdict.
Lindsley stated her existence has modified since submitting the lawsuit, bringing up it’s been exhausting for her to discover a process. She is lately a server at a cafe in Georgia.
“I don’t know what the future has for me, but I definitely hope that this paves the way for other women,” she stated.
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