A Florida jury found that a 20-year employee of the USPS was unlawfully fired because the employee had filed, in the view of the USPS, too many workers’ compensation claims. An employee in Massachusetts cannot be fired for filing a Massachusetts workers’ compensation claim. To allow such conduct would prevent the employer from paying the workers’ compensation benefits that are rightfully owed to the employee.

Here is a great post on this recent Florida jury verdict provided courtesy of the Tampa Bay Personal Injury Lawyer Blog:

A Broward Circuit Court jury has leveled a $6 million verdict against United Parcel Service, finding that the company wrongfully fired a delivery truck driver from its Deerfield Beach office.

After a four-day trial, jurors needed less than three hours Friday to conclude that UPS unlawfully retaliated against John Thigpen, a 20-year employee, for pursuing workers’ compensation benefits. Thigpen received $669,661 in economic damages and $5.3 million in non-economic damages for the mental anguish he has suffered.

Thigpen’s legal team argued that the Pompano Beach man was fired after a UPS official sent a May 2001 e-mail directing supervisors to target “injury repeater[s].”

Thigpen, 45, had been injured seven times while with UPS, Adler said. He was fired in November 2001.