In 2004, plaintiff Maria Martinez, 38, a pharmacy technician, returned to work after being on disability leave for five months. However, she learned that she was transferred to another store. Martinez never suffered from anxiety, depression or any other psychological conditions before, but she became caught in the crossfire of a conflict between two managers at her store who were at odds with each other. As a result, whenever she would follow one of the manager’s orders, she would be reprimanded by the other. In 2004, after more than a year of the hostile work environment, she became physically caught between the two managers as they shouted at each other and suffered panic attack. She subsequently collapsed due to her emotional reaction, and had to be taken from the store in an ambulance and transported to a hospital. Martinez was ultimately diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and took disability leave for five months to get counseling and treatment. After returning to work, Martinez was transferred to four different stores in a 2.5-year period, even though she had never been subject to frequent transfers prior to her medical leave of absence. In 2006, Martinez’s direct supervisor, Kien Chau, falsely accused her of giving out a prescription for free. (She was later vindicated of the accusation.) Chau also began making derogatory remarks toward her, calling her “crazy,” “bipolar,” “psycho,” “mentally off,” and “too old,” all in the presence of co-workers and customers. In 2007, Martinez learned that her supervisor had approached four of her co-workers and asked them to make false statements about her as part of a plan to get her fired. Later in 2007, the Rite Aid district manager, who had allegedly made Martinez feel uncomfortable during a prior encounter at a bank, visited Martinez’s store and allegedly told her in a threatening voice that he knew she was a problem and that he was going to take care of her. As a result, Martinez filed an administrative charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May 2007. However, after Rite Aid received notification of the charge, Martinez was given a final written warning, falsely stating that she continued to make prescription label errors, ignore her supervisor’s directions, and disrupt service levels. In July 2007, Martinez sent a letter to Rite Aid’s chief executive officer, detailing the alleged workplace discrimination and harassment. Four days later, she was placed on suspension and, in August 2007, she was terminated after being employed for 23 years. Martinez sued Rite Aid Corp.; her pharmacy manager, Chau; a district manager, Brad Lohman; the human resources manager, Frank Granillo; and the pharmacy district manager, John Acosta. Martinez alleged that the defendants’ actions constituted wrongful termination due to her disability and age, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. Lohman, Granillo and Acosta were ultimately dismissed from the case, and the matter continued against Chau and Rite Aid Corp. In 2009, a jury found that Rite Aid had intentionally inflicted and caused severe emotional distress, and then wrongfully terminated Martinez because of a mental health disability, for taking of protected medical leave, and in retaliation for making a sexual harassment complaint. It also awarded Martinez $8.2 million, including $3.4 million in compensatory damages and $4.8 in punitive damages. However, the defendants appealed the verdict. The Court of Appeals ultimately took away the punitive damages award and remanded the matter back for a second trial on damages only. According to plaintiff’s counsel, the trial court, during the second trial, significantly limited the presentation of evidence about how badly Martinez had allegedly been treated. Thus, the jury returned a verdict of just $321,000 in compensatory damages. As a result, Martinez appealed the verdict. The Court of Appeals again reversed the jury verdict and remanded the matter back for a retrial on damages. This time, the Court of Appeals had explicit instructions to give the jury about the liability findings in the first trial and regarding the necessity for some leeway regarding evidence of the nature of the mistreatment. In addition, the parties agreed that neither side would introduce details about the 2004 incident or Martinez’s emotional as a result of that incident, other than to note that Martinez had gotten some counseling and treatment for “work-related stress.” Thus, during the third trial, plaintiff’s counsel was allowed to present evidence as to what had allegedly occurred after Martinez had returned to work following her medical leave. Specifically, Martinez claimed that while she was out on disability leave, the pharmacy manager from the store where she had her panic attack called her treating physicians and got them to divulge information about her condition and treatment. She claimed that the manager then spread that information throughout the various Rite Aid pharmacies in the area. Thus, Martinez claimed that when she returned from her leave, she was transferred several times to a new store, but that at every store, managers and other employees very quickly began to refer to as “crazy” or “psycho” and made other nasty jokes about her mental health. Martinez claimed that her new pharmacy manager, Chau, increased the hostile treatment in 2006, as he not only attacked her mental health, but told her that she was too old for the job and that he preferred the younger female pharmacy technicians, whereas she was “old enough to be their mother.” In addition, Chau started paper her file on her in December of 2006, including written complaints about her work performance and behavior, as well as accusations of prescription labeling errors and other potentially dangerous mistakes. He allegedly also got her co-workers involved, pressuring them to make their own written complaints about Martinez. The write-ups piled up, and soon human resources called Martinez in for meetings to address her supposed-poor work performance. During that time, Martinez also had a very uncomfortable encounter at the bank with the district manager for her store, who came up behind her while she was at the teller, put his hands on her waist and shoulder, leaned in close and said into her ear, “It’s nice to see you.” Martinez claimed that when she later confronted him at the store about the incident, his response was to tell her that she was a “problem” and that he would “take care of her.” Even though two of Martinez’s co-workers came forward to confess that they had made false write-ups at Chau’s insistence, Rite Aid only transferred Chau, and never informed Martinez of the reason for the transfer or that the write-ups had been determined to be false. Thus, plaintiff’s counsel contended that Martinez’s new manager knew all about Martinez’s alleged reputation as a “basket case” and picked up where Chau left off. Counsel contended that as result, Rite Aid terminated Martinez’s employment in August 2007, relying, in part, on write-ups from Chau (as was later discovered), despite Rite Aid’s knowledge that Chau had been making false complaints., Martinez claimed that she suffers from emotional distress and depression as a result of her mistreatment and wrongful termination. She claimed that she had previously renewed her therapy during the course of the mistreatment, but that she was emotionally destroyed by the termination. Martinez explained that she began her employment with Thrifty, which later became Rite Aid, in 1983, at the age of 17. After starting as an ice cream scooper, Martinez was promoted to pharmacy clerk and, later, became a licensed pharmacy technician. In her first 20 years of employment, Martinez was named “Employee of the Month” approximately 20 times and named “Employee of the Year” two times. After her termination, she applied for jobs at other pharmacies, but no one would hire her. She claimed that as a result, the only jobs she was able to secure afterward were commission-based jobs for mortuaries/cemeteries, selling plots and funeral services to grieving families. Thus, she claimed that for years following her termination, she and her family struggled to put food on the table and to keep their home out of foreclosure. However, Martinez was ultimately unable to meet her sales quotas, and was again out of work at age 52. The plaintiff’s vocational rehabilitation expert opined that Martinez may have difficulty returning to work because of the amount of time that has passed, on top of her being terminated from a position that caused Martinez to endure years of litigation with two trials and all the attendant depositions. Martinez compared her experience in the course of being cross-examined by the defense lawyer a half-dozen times in 10 years to being like Jesus on the cross, like soldiers who had lost limbs, or like her own daughter had been sexually assaulted. She also claimed that she was not better emotionally in the 10 years that the case had been going on, but that she did not have much in the way of treatment either. Specifically, Martinez claimed that she had lost insurance coverage when she lost her job and that even in subsequent jobs where she had insurance coverage, she was too terrified of being fired again to request time off for the regular doctor’s appointments that treatment would require. Thus, Martinez claimed that her depression remained and plateaued as a result of the 2006 and 2007 incidents. Two of her treating doctors, one of which was a psychologist, also testified about her condition, and a Rite Aid store manager confirmed some of the bad treatment. Defense counsel disputed the amount of Martinez’s alleged economic damages, arguing that Martinez failed to successfully mitigate her damages. Counsel also disputed the severity of Martinez’s allegedly emotional , and argued that Martinez overcame her emotional distress through her family and being able to get a new job(s).