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The other day a Fresno California Superior Court ordered Chipotle to pay a former manager over 8 Million Dollars for wrongful termination.

Jeanette Ortiz was fired for allegedly stealing $626 from the Chipotle safe, and the restaurant claimed there was video evidence to prove it. When Ortiz denied stealing the money and demanded to see the tape, Chipotle claimed it had been inadvertantly deleted.

Ortiz and her attourney claimed it was a scheme to fire her for filing 4 workmans comp claims and being out for 4 pregnancies. Essentially she was a drain on the companies resources so they wanted to get rid of her.

The case went to trial after Chipotle initially offered her $1,000 to settle the claim.

During the case it was brought up that Ortiz had 9 kids, was having money troubles and recently had to move from her house into a smaller apartment with her 9 kids, and that she had to borrow money from a relative to pay a $1700 electric bill. That was the case Chipotle was trying to make for why she stole the money.

In the end, after 4 hours of deliberation the jury awarded her 6 million for emotional distress and 1.7 million for lost wages.

Why so much money? Well 6 million is for emotional distress, that seems a bit much to me considering people spend decades in jail for being wrongly convicted of crimes and only get a few hundred thousand and this lady gets 6 million, seems kind of out of line. Also, the law is meant to make people whole, not give them a lottery winning and set them up for yacht with the Kardashians

Is Society Fucking Crazy???

Here's my thing, I believe Ortiz was probably wrongly fired. The funny and ironic thing about this is California is an at will state meaning that assuming Chipotle did fabricate a reason for firing her, it was completely unnecessary and they could have let her go without having to claim she was stealing.

My beef with this story is I don't feel this issue deserves a 8 million Dollar payout. Was the women wronged, I think she probably was. The 1.7 million was based on the assumption she would have gotten a $100,000 raise and that would have been 17 years worth of work. With the emotional distress payout however she's essentially being paid her salary for the next 100 years.

I think giving this women 2-3 years worth of salary is more than fair. It allows her to be made whole, it makes up for her being wronged, and she still has the opportunity to go get another job and invest this money and set herself up for retirement. The idea that she gets 8 million Dollars for being wrongly fired seems a little extreme. This also is scary for large companies. Let's be honest most retail managers are not necessarily experts in employment law so your minimum wage employee makes one fuckup or wrongs someone and now your on the hook for 8 million Dollars? Now in the grand scheme of things for a company like Chipotle this is a drop in the bucket, but how about for a small business? Something like this would destroy them.

I sort of understand the reasoning for large payouts like this. The goal is to deter companies from doing wrong things like this. If this cost Chipotle $50,000 that would be a drop in the bucket and it would almost be ammunition to continue fucking people over because heck it's only gonna cost us $50,000, that's nothing.

That said it seems wrong to me that this equates to a lottery payout for an individual and in a way encourages this sue happy mentality we have in society.

What I personally think would be a better system if we are going to have huge windfalls like this, is ths women gets like 10% of it which equates to $800,000 which is about 11 years worth of wages, and the rest of the money goes to a charity. That way you still have the large "fine" so to speak and a deterrant, this women is made more than whole again, and the money goes to a better cause. This women to me doesn't deserve a lotto payment that sets her up for life over this incident.

To me the law is designed to make people whole and right wrongs, it's not meant to set someone up for life. If you ever watch People's Court and similar shows, if someone breaks down your fence, it doesn't mean they have to pay to put a unilock paver patio in your backyard, and outdoor grill, a pool and a top of the line fence, it means they have to replace your fence and make you whole again. This women should be made whole, not made rich.

I know some will disagree with me. I saw this story on Reddit and an overwhelming amount of people were saying things like fuck Chipotle good for her, but personally I don't agree. What's your thoughts?

Thanks for reading...

Rules For Rebels