Jackson National Life Insurance successfully defended against claims for discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment based on sexual harassment and race discrimination, and constructive discharge brought by a former employee who opted to continue litigating as an independent plaintiff after refusing a settlement offer accepted by eight other former employees in a lawsuit initially brought on their behalf by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Taking over the case from another law firm, a cross-office, cross-practice team of Faegre Drinker attorneys from the labor and employment, product liability and mass torts, and business litigation practice groups defended Jackson in the litigation, collaborating quickly to master the facts of the case, which involved nearly 100 deposition transcripts and over 1 million pages of documents, and to draft summary judgment and Daubert motions in order to meet a tight deadline.
The Faegre Drinker team filed a summary judgment brief seeking to dispose of all of the plaintiff’s claims and two motions to exclude the plaintiff’s expert witnesses who sought to opine that the plaintiff was entitled to over $4 million in damages from Jackson. The team also opposed a motion from the plaintiff seeking to add a new expert witness who would opine that the plaintiff was entitled to nearly $13 million in damages.
On March 11, 2021, the chief judge issued an order granting summary judgment in Jackson’s favor on all of the plaintiff’s claims, finding that while the plaintiff alleged that she was discriminated against “in almost all terms and conditions of employment,” the plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to any one of her allegations.
