Employee Walks Out of His Own Birthday Party from Panic Attack
Kevin Berling is a former employee at Gravity Diagnostics laboratory in Covington, Kentucky. He had a simple request. He didn't want a birthday party thrown in his honor due to his anxiety disorder, but his company did anyway. Kevin had a panic attack, walked out, and was later fired over the incident.
During the ordeal, Kevin was upset, had a panic attack, and eventually walked out of the celebration during the lunchtime party. At the time, his coping method was to hug himself while asking the other employees to stop. At least two employees felt uncomfortable with the situation and asked Berling to stop. These employees then left the conference room.
He expressly asked them not to throw him a birthday party due to his panic attacks when he is the center of attention. The next day, his office manager confronted him about his behavior of walking out during the party. He began to experience another panic attack.
Later, he sued Gravity Diagnostics for lost wages and emotional distress, and the jury awarded him $450,000.00 USD in cash.
Gravity Diagnostics COO Clearly Doesn't Understand Anxiety Disorders
The Chief Operating Officer, Julie Brazil, stands by her employee's actions to escort this upset man out of the building, and the employees removed his access to the building. The employees then sent out security alerts to all employees that he was not allowed back into the building.
She said: "My employees de-escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible while removing his access to the building, alerting me, and sending out security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what they were supposed to do. As an employer who puts our employee safety first, we have a zero-tolerance policy and we stand by our decision to terminate the plaintiff for his violation of our workplace violence policy."
Brazil told news Link NKY that it was all of her other employees that were the victims.
Editor's note: It appears that the COO of Gravity Diagnostics should take sensitivity training on how to deal with employees with anxiety disorders.
Source:
Goth, Meghan. "Man awarded $350k after firing over birthday party at Gravity Diagnostics." LINK NKY. 14 April 2022.
Do you think that Gravity Diagnostics was inconsiderate of Kevin Berling's request to not throw him a birthday party?
