In Korshoff v. Wesley Financial Group, LLC, 2024 WL 445849 (Feb. 6, 2024) the plaintiff sued for unpaid commissions on grounds of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, retaliatory discharge, and intentional misrepresentation. A jury found for her on all counts and also awarded punitive damages in the amount of 7.5 million dollars. Post-trial, the employer petitioned for the punitive damages to be reduced to the statutory maximum and the trial court agreed, reducing the punitives to $559,500.00. The Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s verdict on all counts. The court of appeals found that damages for breach of contract and unjust enrichment were not inconsistent where the damages were for temporally distinct instances of misconduct. The court also agreed with the jury’s decision that the oral agreement for a commission to be paid on leads generated was a legal contract. The court of appeals found that damages for breach of contract for unpaid commissions were appropriate for the time of Korshoff’s employment, and that damages for unjust enrichment were appropriate for leads generated by Korshoff’s work that finalized after her termination. The appeals court also held that for a common law claim of retaliatory discharge, the aggrieved employee has no duty to report their claim to an external entity and that the employer’s misconduct was sufficient to satisfy Tennessee’s nine-factor test for punitive damages.
Tennessee Court of Appeals Affirms Verdict in Retaliatory Discharge for Unpaid Commissions
