$2.4 Million Arbitration Award for Victim of Sexual Harassment by 24 Hour Fitness

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Jean Hyams was on the team of attorneys that represented a corporate sales manager in her sexual harassment claims against her employer, 24 Hour Fitness. The company required their employees to sign away the right to a trial by jury as a condition of their employment, so the claims could only be brought through private arbitration. The result, a $2.4 million award, including $1.2 million in punitive damages was one of the largest awards on record for a single-plaintiff arbitration. After the arbitration, the employer tried to seal the record to keep the plaintiff from publicizing the outcome of her case. Jean Hyams and Leslie Levy fought a successful post-arbitration legal battle for the right to make the company’s misdeeds public so that other employers would learn the costly consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace.