Bennett v. R&L Carriers Shared Services, LLC

Type of Case: Malicious prosecution
Court: U.S. District Court, Richmond
Attorneys: John Barry Donohue Jr. and James B. Thorsen, Richmond

Summary: A dock supervisor for a national trucking company was fired and charged with embezzlement over the theft of three computers.

His attorneys contended that the company lacked a reasonable basis for crediting the account of another employee who acknowledged that he had one of three computers stolen from the company’s Chesterfield County terminal in March 2006.

The employee told the company and police that Bennett had sold the computer to him. Bennett denied any knowledge of the theft. The charge was withdrawn in Chesterfield County Circuit Court after the accuser failed to appear for trial and disappeared.

The jury awarded $1,716,920 in compensatory damages on the malicious prosecution count for the supervisor and hit the employer, R&L Carriers Shared Services LLC, a subsidiary of R + L Carriers, for $1.5 million in punitive damages. It awarded a total of $48,000 in punitives against three R&L employees.

Post-trial motions are pending.