Man sues company for celebrating his birthday

A man has been awarded $US450,000 ($A611,000) after his colleagues threw a birthday party, despite him asking not to due to his anxiety disorder.

Kevin Berling was working as a lab technician at Gravity Diagnostics in Kentucky when his fellow employees threw a celebration for his birthday on August 7, 2019.

The 29-year-old suffered a panic attack following the celebrations and was eventually fired from his job. 

Mr Berling then filed a compensation lawsuit, seeking damages and compensation for lost income.

“Managers started giving him a hard time for his response to the birthday celebrations,” his lawyer Tony Bucher told local TV news outlet WKRC.

“They actually accused him of stealing his co-workers’ joy.”

Mr Berling specifically told his boss in 2018 that he did not want any celebrations for his birthday at work due to his anxiety. 

His employer claims to have “forgot” about the request which resulted in a panic attack on that fateful day in 2019.

It took Mr Berling almost an hour to recover from the awful ordeal in his car, which was then questioned the following day.

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Following the interrogation, Mr Berling suffered another panic attack. 

A week later, he was fired from his job with his manager being “worried about him being angry and possibly becoming violent”.

Mr Berling was awarded a $US450,000 ($A611,000) judgment against the company by a unanimous jury.

The settlement included $US120,000 ($A163,000) in lost wages and benefits, $US30,000 ($A40,000) in future wages, and $US300,000 ($A408,000) for “past, present and future mental pain and suffering, mental anguish, embarrassment, humiliation, mortification, and loss of self-esteem”.

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