The Seventh Circuit held that the record contained sufficient evidence to support jury's verdict. While the defendant claimed that the plaintiff was fired because she had failed to correct a production error on customer's order, the jury could believe the plaintiff's denial regarding alleged incident, as well as the disavowal of the incident by a co-worker, who, according to defendant, had initially reported the incident. Moreover, the plaintiff otherwise established a causal link between her report of sexual harassment and her termination 6 weeks later, especially where evidence indicated that defendant had tolerated similar errors made by co-workers who had not protested sexual harassment.
Further, the record supported the jury's award of $50,000 in compensatory damages, and $250,000 in punitive damages, even though plaintiff merely stated that her termination was "hard" on her, and that she was depressed because she had always been used to working. The punitive damages were not excessive given defendant's efforts to hide the retaliatory discharge by generating a false paper trail that included manufactured details regarding plaintiff's job performance.