Jury Awards $61 Million in Bias Case

A Superior Court jury awarded $61 million to two FedEx drivers of Lebanese descent who said a manager had harassed them with racial slurs for two years.

Edgar Rizkallah, 43, and Kamil Issa, 36, both of Pleasanton, said in the discrimination lawsuit that they were called “terrorists,” “camel jockeys” and other epithets in 1999 and 2000 by Stacy Shoun, terminal manager for the Oakland FedEx Ground facility where the two men were contract drivers.

An Alameda County jury on Friday awarded the men $50 million in punitive damages, on top of $11 million in compensatory damages awarded May 24, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and a FedEx spokesman said Saturday.

The company plans to appeal.

Lebanese Americans Rizkallah and Issa accused FedEx Ground, the Pittsburgh-based trucking division of shipping giant FedEx Corp., and Shoun in the 2001 lawsuit of creating a hostile work environment based on their race and national origin and causing emotional distress, said their lawyer, Christopher Dolan. The men complained to senior managers but the company ignored their claims, Dolan said.

The lawsuit accused FedEx Ground of failing to enforce its own anti-discrimination policies and prevent abuse against minorities. Other workers testified that they had witnessed the harassment, Dolan said.

Shoun was ordered to pay $1 million to the drivers as part of the compensatory damages award under a California law allowing individuals to be held personally liable for workplace harassment.

A FedEx spokesman called the verdict “excessive.”