Dive Brief:
- The Colorado jury that awarded a former SHRM employee $11.5 million in a race discrimination and retaliation trial was given improper instruction and “inflamed by prejudice,” human resources association SHRM argued in the opening brief of its appeal first filed Friday, and filed again with procedural amendments Monday (Mohamed v. SHRM).
- In its request to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, SHRM asked the court to reverse the Colorado district court’s denial of its motion for a new trial or, alternatively, to “significantly” reduce the amount in damages awarded to the plaintiff.
- The lawsuit is one of several SHRM is battling simultaneously. The organization is also contending with a charge from a former applicant who alleged disability bias when her job offer was revoked after she requested to use a service dog, as well as a lawsuit from its insurance provider, which says it’s not responsible for paying the jury award in Mohamed.
Dive Insight:
SHRM relied on a few arguments to suggest it was entitled to a new trial.
First, it took issue with the court instructing the jury to find for the plaintiff if she could show that race played a part in her termination — even if it was not the sole cause of termination.
This reading came from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, according to the plaintiff’s argument on the instruction, which in examining the but-for cause standard in the context of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claimed “the plaintiff’s sex need not be the sole or primary cause of the employer’s adverse action.”
SHRM objected to this reading, arguing that Supreme Court precedent found that “to prevail on a [§] 1981 claim, ‘a plaintiff must show that her race was not just one factor, but indeed the reason for, her injuries.’”
The district court ultimately sided with the plaintiff and her attorneys on the instruction’s wording. SHRM thus argued that based on the emphasis in the instructions and the plaintiff’s counsel’s closing arguments, “it was entirely possible for Plaintiff to prevail even if the jury also concluded that her failure to turn in completed projects after three months of extensions was the primary cause of the termination of her employment.”
The district court also included testimony SHRM regarded as hearsay, including alleged feelings of discrimination shared with the plaintiff by an African American co-worker.
Finally, SHRM argued the jury was “inflamed by prejudice” when determining punitive damages, citing a jury’s note asking the court who would receive punitive damages. The $10 million punitive award was “unconstitutionally large,” SHRM argued, while the $1.5 million in compensatory damages for emotional harm was not “supported by substantial evidence,” the organization said. It alleged the plaintiff never encountered “racially charged language,” never sought mental health treatment, only testified to three months of retaliation and that SHRM took steps to address her complaints.
The December 2025 jury award made waves in the HR space late last year. SHRM rejected the verdict and vowed at the time to fight “by appealing this decision to the highest courts in the land.”
SHRM filed a motion for a new trial in February but was denied in April. The judge at that time said SHRM’s arguments were “unconvincing in face of the evidence presented at trial.”
“SHRM continues to maintain that this claim has no merit,” Eddie Burke, SHRM’s director of media affairs, said in a statement to HR Dive. “We are appealing this verdict because we believe the trial itself was fundamentally compromised due to improper jury instructions, inflammatory arguments, and inadmissible evidence. The verdict does not reflect the facts, the law, or how SHRM operates. We remain confident in our legal position as the appellate process plays out.”
Attorneys for the plaintiff did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
