Former Sears Employee Awarded $5.2 Mill For Racial Harrassment

A Sears employee has been awarded $5.2million in damages after being subjected to repeated racial discrimination by a colleague.
African American employee Medro Johnson, from Sacramento, California, claim that the racial slurs first started in August 2008 when he was at a company barbecue with his family.
Court records say that Paul St Hilaire approached him and blurted out 'Medro calls me Masta' in 'slave dialect' before walking off, laughing.

  Mr Johnson, 49, said he was humiliated to be referred to as a slave in front of his wife, son and daughter, according to the Sacramento Bee. 
Last Friday, a Sacramento Superior Court jury awarded Mr Johnson $2.2million compensation for lost earnings, pain and suffering.
The other $3million was for punitive damages, an award granted after the jury found that Sears' policy makers and managers conducted themselves 'with malice, oppression or fraud' for failing to investigate Mr Johnson's complaints.

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