November 21, 2002
DALLAS, TEXAS - A Dallas jury today awarded $11.247 million in an historic verdict against cosmetics giant, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. The jury, in the case of Claudine Woolf v. Mary Kay Cosmetics, (Texas Civil Action No. 00-5612-J), found that Mary Kay was guilty of disability discrimination against one of its top sales directors, Claudine Woolf. Ms. Woolf was denied an accommodation by Mary Kay Cosmetics shortly after she began treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer and discovered she was pregnant with her second child. She decided to keep the baby and is one of 28 known women to have had a healthy baby after massive chemo therapy treatments.
Angela Alioto, attorney for Ms. Woolf, called today's precedent setting verdict a great victory for people who work as independent contractors and who have a physical disability. Said Alioto, "The jury made it very clear that people who work as independent contractors faced with a disability are entitled to the same rights and protections under the law as any `regular' employee.
Claudine is literally a working-class hero. She has been fighting Mary Kay Cosmetics' discriminatory treatment of her for close to five years. At the time of her dismissal, she was one out of the top three percent of one of the largest sales forces in America. She was an award winning sales person, recruiting more than 50 beauty consultants to her unit and receiving the famous Mary Kay Career car. Yet, when Claudine was literally fighting for her life, and the life of her unborn child, the company that she had been so loyal to, abandoned her."
Alioto added, "With today's verdict, the jury reminded Mary Kay Cosmetics of its founder, Mary Kay Ash's main philosophy of life - God First-Family Second-Career Third. The jury also sent a message to all companies that rely on independent contractors that their employees are human beings who deserve to be treated with fairness and equality when they are sick".