A judge has conditionally granted a partial retrial to UPS in a former driver's whistleblower suit unless he agrees to a reduction in his overall damages to $3.45 million.
Tuesday's ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kristin S. Escalante comes five months after she reduced by nearly $90,000 a jury's original $5.45 million award given to plaintiff Richard Galvan on March 6, 2023, to $5.36 million. The judge at that time found that Galvan's workers' compensation benefits of $87,397 should be deducted from the jury's award.
In Tuesday's ruling, the judge concluded that the portion of Galvan's damages representing his pain and suffering should be downsized from $4.5 million to $2.5 million, agreeing with UPS attorneys that the jury's decision was excessive. Galvan has 30 days from Tuesday's ruling to make a decision on the $3.45 million total. If he rejects it, there will be a retrial on damages only.
According to Galvan's suit, he was hired at UPS in October 1986 and throughout his employment was a member of Teamsters Local 396, serving as union steward starting in 2000, the suit stated. Galvan was fired in January 2017 and was a big-rig driver at the time.
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Galvan, now in his mid-50s, alleged UPS cut back his hours and discriminated against him because of an injury and due to his age. He maintained that younger workers with less seniority were taking some of his shifts as of August 2016 and that when he filed a grievance, the discrimination increased.
Galvan also maintained he was assaulted by a co-worker with a known history of violence while the plaintiff was participating in workers' rights activism in an employee parking lot. The assailant was never disciplined, according to the suit filed in April 2018.
In their court papers, UPS attorneys denied Galvan was subjected to retaliation.
"Indeed, the evidence shows that Galvan raised hundreds of concerns throughout his 30-plus years of employment with UPS and was never subjected to any forms of retaliation for making such complaints," the UPS lawyers argued in their court papers.
Galvan was fired because he was found to have "engaged in proven dishonesty" after an internal investigation and the decision was upheld by a neutral arbitrator in a union grievance hearing where several witnesses testified, including the plaintiff, according to the UPS attorneys' court papers.
UPS did not authorize the co-worker's alleged attack on Galvan, the UPS lawyers further stated in their court papers.
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