A man from Kentucky has secured $ 450,000 in a lawsuit against his former employer, after the company organized a surprise birthday party that caused him a panic attack. The man, Kevin Berling, suffers from anxiety and panic attacks and had asked Gravity Diagnostics not to organize a surprise birthday party for him, as was customary for other employees. When his colleagues were having a party, Berling suffered a panic attack that worsened his relationship with the company, CNBC reported on Saturday. 3 MILLIONS ORDERED TO PAY 50 MILLION DOLLARS IN ARMY VETERAN TREATMENT TO OTOPOULOS Burling was called to a meeting the next day, where his superiors “criticized” him for how he handled the party, resulting in a new panic attack. “At this point he is starting to use other treatment techniques that he has been working on for years with his therapist,” Berling’s lawyer Tony Bucher told Link NKY. “The way he described it is that he started hugging himself and asking them to stop.” Burling was then sent home for the rest of the week and received a letter the following Monday informing him that he had been fired. Berling has sued the company for discrimination and retaliation for disability, according to CNBC. However, Gravity Diagnostics claimed that Berling posed a threat to his colleagues during the incident. Founder and COO Julie Brazil said other employees had to calm Berling down and accompany him out of the building after the party. “My staff escalated the situation to get the plaintiff out of the building as quickly as possible, removing access to the building, notifying me and sending security reminders to ensure he could not access the building, which is exactly what he had to do. He told Link. GET FOX BUSINESS IN ENGINE BY CLICKING HERE Berling’s lawyer, Tony Bucher, argued that Berling had never been violent and that a panic attack did not pose a risk to others. “The main argument was that he was fired because he had a panic attack,” Bucher told Link. “They made assumptions that he was dangerous because of his disability and not on the basis of any evidence that he was violent.”
