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Former FedEx Employee Awarded $366 Million After Suing Company for Discrimination

“I think it’s critical that anyone fight for themselves and for the company to do the right thing,” said Jennifer Harris, Fort Worth, Texas woman who successfully sued FedEx.

Harris’ sentiments are what motivated her to go through with suing her former employer which resulted in a $366 million dollar jury award following her racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit. Harris says she started her career with FedEx as an account executive in 2007, and has worked her way up the ranks for her strong performance.

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Despite her successful tenure as a saleswoman for FedEx, her experience on the job took a turn on March 8, 2019. Harris claimed she was being discriminated against for being Black after her white manager asked her to take a demotion.

According to the lawsuit, Harris’ supervisor asked her to “step down to a lower position because she was ‘so good’ at what she was doing.” The lawsuit goes on to say, “when Harris declined to be demoted, the negative treatment escalated” and Harris’ supervisor removed some of her commissions. It was after Harris complained to human resources, did her supervisor issue a “Letter of Counseling for unacceptable performance on June 26, 2019, without a documented discussion as required by FedEx’s policies.”

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“Jennifer does sales and some sales involves a lot of spreadsheets and numbers, and H.R. was easily bamboozled by managers who could manipulate numbers to make Jennifer look bad,” said B.B. Sanford, one of Harris’ attorneys who worked on her racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit.

After receiving poor performance reviews, Harris suspected she was being retaliated against and raised her concerns to higher ups.

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Less than a year after raising racial discrimination and retaliation concerns, Harris was out of a job.

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Harris decided not to let her firing be the end and filed a racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against FedEx on May 20, 2021. The lawsuit alleges FedEx failed to follow its policies prohibiting discrimination and retaliation. “The corporation discriminates and retaliates against by first disciplining the employee because of race and then terminating the employee after the employee reported concerns of violations,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit also accuses FedEx of not looking at all of the documents related to Harris’ discrimination claims and failing to train its managers to properly handle retaliation.

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A Texas jury believed Harris’ claims of discrimination and retaliation and decided to send a strong message by ordering FedEx to pay Harris $366 million dollars in damages. “I felt very good about our chances of winning the case, I did not expect the amount,” attorney Brian Sanford said of the jury verdict.

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