A Davenport, Iowa, jury has awarded the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) damages totaling $240 million — the largest verdict in the federal agency's history — for disability discrimination and severe abuse.
The jury agreed with the EEOC that Hill County Farms, doing business as Henry's Turkey Service, subjected a group of 32 men with intellectual disabilities to severe abuse and discrimination for a period between 2007 and 2009, after 20 years of similar mistreatment.
"The verdict sends an important message that the conduct that occurred here is intolerable in this nation, and hopefully will help to restore dignity and acknowledge the humanity of the workers who were mistreated for so many years," said EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien.
The company is based in Goldthwaite, Texas, but the work and abuse occurred in West Liberty and Atalissa, Iowa. The jury awarded each of the men $2 million in punitive damages and $5.5 million in compensatory damages. This verdict follows a September 2012 order from the district court judge that Henry's Turkey pay the men $1.3 million for unlawful disability-based wage discrimination, thus making the total judgment $241.3 million.
EEOC presented evidence to the jury that Henry's Turkey exploited these workers, whose jobs involved eviscerating turkeys, because their intellectual disabilities made them particularly vulnerable and unaware of the extent to which their legal rights were being denied. The affected men lived in Muscatine County, Iowa, where they worked for 20 years as part of a contract between Henry's Turkey and West Liberty Foods, an Iowa turkey processing plant.