In October 2009, plaintiff Ronald Lee, 54, a black male, was terminated from his position as a zone manager for Farmers Group Inc., in its Independent Agent Market Group. Lee claimed he was terminated due to his race. Lee originally sued Farmer’s Insurance Group, Farmers Group Inc. and Foremost Property and Casualty Insurance for wrongful termination based on his race and his age, failure to prevent discrimination and breach of implied contract. The case only continued against Farmers Group Inc. On Nov. 2, 2012, the court granted the defense’s motion for summary judgment on age discrimination. The plaintiff only pursued claims of race discrimination and breach of implied contract at trial. Lee had been with Farmers for 30 years and started as an insurance agent. In 2001, he began working for the company’s marketing operations. In 2001 on the marketing side, Lee worked for the FACT division handling commercial products and writing insurance for the urban and underserved markets. In 2008, FACT integrated into IAMM and in January 2009, Lee transferred from FACT to IAMM, also known as Foremost Property and Casualty Insurance and began his new position as a zone manager handling new products, including specialty lines of insurance. Lee also had a new supervisor, who also began his employment as an executive zone director for the western region at IAMM. Lee claimed that on March 23, 2009, he received a text message from his supervisor that was a picture of the 25-foot sign of King Kong at CityWalk at Universal Studios. The following day, Lee allegedly spoke with a black female executive at the company and tells her that he was offended by the picture and found it racially derogatory. On March 26, Lee’s supervisor reassigned some of his large accounts from Lee to another zone manager, who is white. In June 2009, Lee’s supervisor meets with him and the other zone managers in order for them to make presentations on their respective territories. Lee’s presentation includes a mistake. After the meeting, Lee’s supervisor puts Lee on a formal warning and performance review and notes his alleged failings and the error in his presentation. In late 2009, the company had acquired Foremost, as well as another company, and was in the process of consolidating operations. As such, in the western region where Lee worked, only three positions remained out of the four original ones for zone managers. Lee was consequently terminated after being scored the lowest on the matrix to evaluate job skills. Lee contended that he did well in his positions and that his supervisor did not treat him fairly in terms of his ratings performance. Lee contended that he was terminated due to his race. The defense contended that Lee was terminated in 2009 pursuant to a reduction in force. Lee had performance issues from the beginning he started his position at IAMM including a lack of basic computer skills inclusive of Excel and other programs; that he was not timely with his reports; and that he did not have the ability to develop and execute marketing strategies, the defense argued. Regarding the King Kong email, the defense contended that Lee’s supervisor, who worked remotely in Seattle, was in Los Angeles and staying at the Hilton at Universal City Studios when he saw the King Kong sign. The defense contended that Lee’s supervisor intended to send the picture email to his wife. The defense asserted that the email included in the Re: line “Show Henry,” Henry being the supervisor’s 6-year-old son who loved monkeys and King Kong. The efense introduced into evidence that at the time this email was sent, Henry had a collection of 20 stuffed animals, the King Kong movie on DVD and artwork, as well. On March 24, when Lee allegedly spoke with the black female executive at Farmers, the defense noted that she testified that Lee did not say anything about being offended about the email, but did say that he received a photo of a gorilla and that he was somewhat offended. The executive testified that she told Lee to go speak with his supervisor and ask why he sent the picture. The defense noted that the executive did nothing further, as the executive expected Lee to speak with his supervisor. The defense maintained that then on March 25, Lee responded to the supervisor’s email in the morning with “what is this???” to which the supervisor immediately replied, “Disregard, your email and my wife’s are side by side on phone.” The supervisor claimed that he reassigned Lee’s accounts to another white zone manager because he was concerned that Lee does not know what he is doing and the other zone manager had handled large accounts before and was more experienced. The defense contended that the supervisor continued to notice Lee’s performance problems and repeatedly counseled Lee on his lateness, his failure to report monthly and following on market strategy. The defense contended that while the other two white male zone managers delivered no mistakes on their power point reports, Lee’s contained an $8 million error. After the meeting, the supervisor was again concerned that Lee did not know what he was doing and on Lee’s performance review and formal warning notes Lee’s previous errors, as well as the mistake on his presentation. The defense noted that there was a matrix to evaluate job skills for the three remaining positions for zone managers. At the time there were four zone managers, including Lee, the original two white male zone managers and also a black female, who was previously Lee’s supervisor at FACT. The matrix contained two portions, the first being a weighted score of past annual reviews from 2006 to 2008, which accounted for 60 percent of the score, and a job skill assessment by the zone director. Lee’s supervisor only did the job skills assessment for Lee and the two white males, while the black female was graded by her previous zone director. Defense contended that Lee scored the lowest. The defense also added that at the same time as the western region’s position was being cut, the mid-Atlantic region also lost one position for their zone managers. The plaintiff responded that the reduction in force was not done in accordance to Farmers internal policies and there was an error in scoring of it as the scores given to Lee and the black female were based on their current skills and not on their past reviews for 2006 to 2008. The defense contended that there was a minor inadvertent error in scoring for the western region, but even if it was corrected, that Lee would still have scored the lowest. The defense also responded that the job skills assessed by the matrix are not the same as the scores from the past performance reviews. The defense contended that Lee was informed in October 2009 that because of his matrix score and the reduction in force, he was to meet with his supervisor, the FACT zone manager involved in the scoring process and human resources. Lee was allegedly told he could apply for other jobs in the company and they would provide him access to an office or he could accept a severance package for six months pay and he would have to sign a release. The defense noted that Lee did not say anything about the emailed picture or discrimination at the meeting. During Lee’s deposition, he testified that he never showed the email photo to the executive. Lee testified that the mistake on his presentation was a silly mistake., Lee claimed emotional distress. His expert in economics said he would suffer $700,000 to $1 million if his wage loss continued until retirement age of 65, if he was not able to get a job. The defense noted that the plaintiff’s expert also testified that she did an analysis of Lee’s mitigation efforts, but that she had not spoken with Lee or interviewed him about it. However, Lee said he was interviewed by the expert. Lee said that he could not find any work. Plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury to award $3 million in emotional distress and pain and suffering damages. The defense found evidence said Lee was working as a consultant for a marketing firm in 2011.