Ex-Employee Wins Harassment Suit Against UPS

DES MOINES — A jury awarded $80.7 million Thursday to a former United Parcel Service manager who said UPS sexually discriminate and retaliated against her after she accused a driver of poking her in the breast.

The Polk County jury agreed with Linda Channon, a 22-year UPS employee, that the shipping company fostered a hostile work environment when it failed to listen to her complaints of harassment and punished her for them.

UPS was ordered to pay her $500,000 in compensatory damages and $80.2 million in punitive damages. Under a federal law that would apply to the verdict, Channon would be entitled to no more than $300,000 in punitive damages. Her lawsuit also challenges the constitutionality of that law.

Channon, 47, said she was poked in the breast by a driver under her supervision during an argument in 1993. The driver was fired but was then rehired and began stalking her, said her attorney, Roxanne Conlin.