Walmart must pay driver $34M for defamation after false claims of fraud: Jury

A California jury found Walmart defamed a driver with false claims of workers’ compensation fraud, and now the company must pay the former worker more than $34 million in damages.
Filed in the California Superior Court in San Bernardino County, the two-part verdict filed this week said Jesus Fonseca should receive $25 million in punitive damages and $9.7 million in actual damages from the supermarket giant.
Fonseca worked for Walmart for 14 years before being fired by the company, his lawyer David deRubertis said in a statement to USA TODAY. According to a complaint obtained by USA TODAY, Fonseca was forced by Walmart to tell prospective employers that he committed fraud and violated integrity policy.
“We believe the evidence at trial showed that Walmart’s defamation of Jesse was part of a broader scheme to use false accusations to force injured truckers back to work prematurely or, if not, terminate them so that Walmart can cut down workers’ compensation costs,” deRubertis said in a social media post.
Fonseca was injured while working when a semi-truck was rear-ended by another truck, deRubertis said. He then filed a workers’ compensation claim in which Fonseca told the company he was under doctors’ orders which restricted his driving at work.
Walmart then fired him, citing surveillance work that showed him driving a personal car and seeing Fonseca “bending for a matter of minutes”, according to deRubertis.
“The notion that someone possibly performing daily activities outside of their work restrictions amounts to fraud is preposterous,” the complaint said. “Yet, even if an employee with work restrictions inadvertently violates them, this does not amount to fraud in the workplace.”
Walmart called the jury’s decision “outrageous” in a statement to USA TODAY.
“This outrageous verdict simply does not reflect the straightforward and uncontested facts of this case. Accordingly, we will pursue all available remedies,” the company said.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.